this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
109 points (99.1% liked)

You Should Know

33618 readers
292 users here now

YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.

All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.



Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:

**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities:

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

Credits

Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

There are many reasons you might have unclaimed funds (abandoned accounts, uncashed checks, misspelled names, incorrect addresses, etc), and your state is required to hold your property until you claim it.

They will not seek you out, and most people are completely unaware they may have lost funds or property being held by the state.

Every state has an official (.gov) website where you can check whether you have unclaimed property and submit a claim. Just search ‘[my state] unclaimed property’.

e: make sure you go to the official state website; I just noticed some state search top results aren’t the official website.

e2: also, check every state you’ve lived in. Moving state is one of the major reasons this happens, and your unclaimed funds will not move to a new state with you.

e3: if you find unclaimed funds, please comment! I’m fascinated to know, no matter how large or small.

top 26 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 26 minutes ago

I got $9.31 from the ISP I had in college! My sister-in-law had $82 from the same ISP. Seems to be a pattern.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 53 minutes ago

I've never had unclaimed funds, but I have been the person who submits funds that have been unclaimed to the state. I work at a law firm that handles a lot of settlements, and sometimes, people are issued a large portion of the settlement while we wrap up a few other things on the case. Once those are taken care of, I reach out to our client to give them whatever funds remain.

But sometimes, I can't find that person no matter how hard I search. Sometimes, our client disagrees with the additional amount that they are receiving and refuses to cash their check. After a certain number of years, and after every possible attempt to give our client their money has been made, I have it sent to the state.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

My wife got some postal mail about unclaimed funds that looked bogus. After several repeats, we found out that it was due to her uncle passing away intestate.

My wife's already deceased father and him had mingled their finances. But another cousin had found out first and had already moved on cutting us out.

Fixing it has taken over a decade, but the estate finally closed last month. Our share total was around $350k. The thieving cousin probably got away with double that. But hey, a free windfall for retirement.

Unfortunately, I'm out of work so we're living off of that money now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 58 minutes ago (1 children)

I’m glad you finally got it sorted. That’s a hellish process, and I hope you can at least relax now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 minutes ago* (last edited 21 minutes ago)

Well I still need to find a job. ASAP.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Hey thanks. I just made $2.86! And my mom is owed $1.44!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 hours ago

I got $380. Not life-changing, but nice anyhow.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

I only need about tree fiddy

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 hours ago

Usually this can happen when you are owed money by an institution (bank, insurance, stocks, etc) and you either dont claim it, dont get the check, forget about it, or it happens outside of your knowledge (e.g. grandparents set up an account). In the US, you can usually check with your state's Comptroller's office. For example, NY has unclaimed funds under the office of the New York state comptroller

I'd reccomend going directly to the state .gov website and looking there or making sure you have the state website if following a link. They will let you search by name for unclaimed accounts, and then after choosing the one you want to claim, it will ask for ssn, dob and name, etc. If they can verify that information, you get a check in the mail. Ive gotten a few hundred from old insurance that probably settled some account after I'd switched.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

I found about 8K for my mom a few years ago doing that.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 hours ago (4 children)

The US government also holds a secret bank account in your name, and you can access it by writing diagonally and not paying your child support. See [email protected] for more.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 hours ago

What OP is talking about is actually a real thing. Sovcit stuff, not so much.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Gold fringe!

e: seriously, though, this isn’t weird sovcit bullshit. It’s an actual thing.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Im guessing you never watched cable tv in the US between 1993-2005. There was a guy who ran a whole business connecting people with this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I can still see that question mark suit

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

You'd best not be disparaging JG Wentworth (877-CASH-NOW!)! (Also he's a structured settlement guy, not unclaimed funds.)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 hour ago

Actually, the guy I was thinking of was the free money from the government guy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Lesko

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago

I accept your comment for value.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

If you find unclaimed funds, please comment! I’m fascinated to know, no matter how large or small.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I got contacted by a bunch of law firms offering to help me reclaim a bunch of money in the form of abandoned stock shares. How they ended up in the custody of the state is somewhat unknown to me, though I have a theory (which I won’t share). It was a life-changing amount. I wouldn’t be leading the life that I do today if that cash hadn’t dug me out of a whole years ago.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

There are laws requiring abandoned property to be turned over to the owner’s state of residence after a set amount of time, which is how it ends up in the state’s unclaimed property holdings. There are no laws requiring the owner to be notified their property is there, though – you have to request it.

If it’s a substantial amount, lawyers have an incentive to seek you out, but for most people, it won’t be worth an outsider’s effort. It’s easy enough to claim, anyhow, so most people can just file the claim themselves.

Glad you found a life-changing amount! That’s awesome.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Thank you! I was on the edge of having to radically change my life by moving. I would have never met one of my closest friends or my partner. Life really is about luck sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Those bastards demanding my money instead of demanding the company try again to send it to me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

I found out about this because of this letter from Amazon – it was the first letter I saw from them, and will apparently be the last. No idea why this amount is different than any other amount that just goes into my account, but whatever.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago

Due to scheduled maintenance, the unclaimed money search will be unavailable from Saturday 18 January 8:00 am to Sunday 19 January 6:00 pm (AEDT). We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Bish better have my money