Finance Wanted.

By Russ D Johnson

The city of Antlers, OK bills itself "The Deer Capital Of The World". By the city's name alone, one can guess a lot of bucks are running-around in the woods of Oklahoma. Hundreds of millions of lost bucks are also in the State's Treasury Department and, you guessed it- they're not brown and furry and their not running around. I'm talking about the $260 million in Oklahoma unclaimed money sitting-around in the State Treasurer's Office. These funds belong to roughly 350,000 residents who have somehow lost track of them over the years. The main reason the state's fund got so big is because most of the owners don't even know they have money being held by the state!

"I didn't know I had it." says Leiland Osmond, after being reunited with $150 of his missing money in an Oklahoma unclaimed property outreach program at the State Fair. Oklahoma State Treasurer Scott Meacham says he's not alone. "Obviously, a lot of people have lost money and don't realize it." says the Treasurer in a recent report by Oklahoma's KSBI-TV. Visiting the fair paid-off for Osmond who plans to share his newly found money. "My grandchildren will take care of it."

An extra $150 is enough to brighten anyone's day, but in another report by NewsOK, a resident of Norman, Oklahoma made off with a lot more than that . The lucky unclaimed asset owner was reunited with $30,000 from some lost AT&T stocks he had forgotten about. According to Tim Allen, spokesman for the State Treasurer's office, the stocks were sold by the State and the proceeds were place in the state's Unclaimed Property Fund until the citizen found and claimed them.

Unclaimed properties are intangible financial assets (except for safe deposit box contents) that have been deemed 'abandoned' by their owners. State law requires these assets to be turned over to the state after a period of inactivity. According to the Oklahoma Department of Treasury website, "Evidence of this inactivity includes failure to cash a check, the return of a check or correspondence by the Post Office as undeliverable, or the absence of any communication from the owner."

According to the General Provisions of Oklahoma's Unclaimed Property Rules, qualifying 'intangible property' comes in the following forms:

(A) monies, checks, drafts, deposits, interests, dividends and income;

(B) credit balances, customer overpayments, gift certificates, security deposits, refunds,

credit memos, unpaid wages, unused airline tickets, and unidentified remittances.

(C) stocks and other intangible ownership interests in business associations;

(D) monies deposited to redeem stocks, bonds, coupons and other securities, or to make

distributions;

(E) amounts due and payable under the terms of insurance policies;

(F) amounts due and payable under the terms of mining or mineral leases; and

(G) amounts distributable from trusts or custodial funds established under a plan to provide health, welfare, pension, vacation, severance, retirement, death, stock purchase, profit sharing, employee savings, supplemental unemployment insurance, or similar benefits.

People lose track of these assets when they move and forget to leave behind a forwarding address resulting in lost and uncashed checks and the like. Death is also a common cause of financial assets being lost especially if there's no will and the next of kin can't be located. Most of the time, unclaimed property owners just plain forget about their finances in the rush of day to day living.

Residents of Oklahoma and other states should check and do an on-line unclaimed money search. They might just find out the government owes them money this time and not the other way around.

Unclaimed money and property expert Russ Johnson has been assisting Americans in finding their unclaimed money online since 1997. His site, http://www.unclaimedmoney.net, is updated regularly and offers guaranteed official searches for Oklahoma unclaimed money and missing money across the country.