Last month the Washington Post published a story regarding unclaimed money and places to search for it. These are some lesser known resources but definitely worth checking out as searching is free for all of these as well. Typically you should start your unclaimed money search at the individual state pages where each state has their own databases in most cases. This is a good place to start since not all states laws and property claiming procedures are the same. The other common spot is MissingMoney.com. This site is helpful because it allows you to search several states in once place. Most states have shared their database with this site, making it quicker to find your money!
3 Lesser Known Unclaimed Money Resources
The first one is WOW (Workers Owed Wages). This is program of the Wage and Hour Division of the US department of labor. According to their website:
The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) enforces some of our nation’s most comprehensive labor laws. When we find violations, we often recover unpaid wages on behalf of employees. The agency makes every effort to locate and notify all employees due back wages. If we cannot find an employee, we hold their back wages for three years while we continue our efforts to locate them. After three years, if we remain unable to find the person, we are required to send the money to the U.S. Treasury.
Next is the National Registry of Unclaimed Retirement Benefits. This organization is a nationwide, secure database listing of retirement plan account balances that have been left unclaimed by former participants of retirement plans.
Last is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation protects the retirement incomes of nearly 40 million American workers. According to their website:
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) protects the retirement incomes of more than 40 million American workers in nearly 24,000 private-sector defined benefit pension plans. A defined benefit plan provides a specified monthly benefit at retirement, often based on a combination of salary and years of service. PBGC was created by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to encourage the continuation and maintenance of private-sector defined benefit pension plans, provide timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits, and keep pension insurance premiums at a minimum.
PBGC is not funded by general tax revenues. PBGC collects insurance premiums from employers that sponsor insured pension plans, earns money from investments and receives funds from pension plans it takes over.
Three less traditional ways but all free to search and methods to get unclaimed money!