For years, Jerry Seinfeld and Joan Rivers, and as many as 6,914 other customers, have never claimed refunds due them from Bergdorf's. General Motors has been in hock to Rupert Murdoch for
nearly a decade. Russia's mission to the United Nations is still
hoarding unredeemed gift certificates from BJ's Wholesale Club.
Madonna has never cashed at least two paychecks from the Walt Disney Company and Warner Music. "So much for her being called the Material Girl!" Madonna's publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said.
These are just a few names culled from as many as 31 million owners of
accounts held by New York State as unclaimed property - accounts
surrendered by banks, insurers, utility companies and others that said
they had tried but failed to find the rightful owners of deposits,
dividend checks, back wages, rebates and other forgotten funds, which
have grown to a record $13.3 billion.
More than $700 million from abandoned and dormant accounts flooded into the state in the last year alone.
The potential windfall from misplaced money stretches well beyond New
York. Nationwide, states hold more than $62 billion - more than the
individual general fund budget of all but California. The District of
Columbia's unclaimed property database even includes a "Barrack Obama at
1600 Pennsylvania Ave."
"Is this your name?" the office's website asks, when the search result
is clicked. "Do you live or have you lived at the address listed?" "If
you can answer yes," you may be able to claim the more than $100 due you
from General Electric.
In New York, where the state comptroller, Thomas P DiNapoli, returned
$422 million to owners last year, the unclaimed property fund has been
around since the 1940s. Five years ago it stood at $9.9 billion, and its
remarkable growth is a reminder of people's laxity (or the vicissitudes
of the postal system), the redefinition of what constitutes a trifling
amount of money and the fact that businesses are much more dogged in
hounding deadbeats than in tracking down creditors.
After all, if they cannot find Madonna and President Obama, imagine how hard they will look for you.
Generally, banks, insurers and other companies and government agencies
are supposed to try to notify account holders by mail, then publish
their names in local newspapers, before surrendering dormant accounts
after two to five years to the comptroller's office, which publicises
the fund online and at public events like county fairs.
The money can be claimed without charge at any time, though most ends up transferred to the state's general fund.
"They're required to make an effort," DiNapoli said of the institutions
that report them. "I guess it's fair to say it's not the most efficient
way to recover the money."
In New York alone, the number of owners of unclaimed accounts is
staggering: at last count, 471,181 reported by Metropolitan Life,
457,441 by the state's own Department of Taxation and Finance, 109,721
by Verizon Wireless, 83,666 by Consolidated Edison, 33,745 by PayPal,
22,452 by Tiffany & Company and 19,165 by Amway, the home-care
products marketer, including 396 unredeemed gift certificates that
appear to belong to a Long Island couple, Corey and Dolores Jones.
"I own an independent distribution through Amway," Jones said, adding
that he intended to find out why so many gift certificates in the
couple's name were unclaimed.
Unclaimed accounts include wages, safe deposit box contents, estate proceeds, rebates, and utility and rent security deposits.
They are often unclaimed because people die, move without leaving a
forwarding address, neglect to claim a final paycheck or forget about a
security deposit they paid or even a bank account they opened. DiNapoli
himself almost lost one of those, a savings account he opened as a high
school student and has kept for sentimental reasons.
While half the accounts hold less than $100, the biggest individual
payout, in 2008, was $4 million from a stock brokerage account. The
largest single account that remains unclaimed is worth $1.7 million. In
that case, the comptroller's office took the unusual step of trying to
find the owner, but it failed. Before paying a claim, the state verifies
that the claimant's name, address and Social Security number match the
original owner's.
Gov Andrew M Cuomo is not on the list, but his father and some siblings
are, as are the New York State and City budget directors. So is Speaker
Sheldon Silver of the State Assembly, and Dean G Skelos, the State
Senate Republican leader, along with more than one indicted state
legislator.
Michael B Mukasey, who served as attorney general under President George
W Bush, is still owed a paycheck from Columbia Law School, where he
taught until 2007. "One of the things I taught," Mukasey recalled a bit
sheepishly, "was the importance of keeping track of things in preparing
for trial."
Other accounts are listed in the names of Sean J Combs; Bill and Hillary
Rodham Clinton; the Rev Al Sharpton; Bernard L Madoff's sons; the Dalai
Lama; Bruce Springsteen; Anna Wintour of Vogue (an American Express and
a Bergdorf's credit); William Thompson, a former city comptroller and
mayoral candidate (the balance on a gift certificate for golf clubs);
and Domenico Cefalu, who has been identified as head of the Gambino
crime family (a Verizon Wireless refund).
The Donald J Trump does not appear, but companies associated with him
do, prompting Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's chief
financial officer, to remark: "We get checks in the mail; they get
processed no matter how big they are. We don't overlook checks. We take
every check seriously."
In contrast, when asked about some Rockefeller-named accounts, Fraser P
Seitel, a family spokesman, said: "The estates of both Nelson and
Laurance did an exhaustive unclaimed property search at the time of
their deaths. These reported outstanding claims are probably just small
accounts, which most likely would return the estates less money than
they'd have to pay out for the legal time involved in reclaiming them."
However, the writer Tom Wolfe was ecstatic when he was informed that he
had three unexpected debtors: Best Buy, the State of Georgia and The New
York Times Company (apparently a paycheck from the 1980s).
"For years I have scanned those four-point-type lists of uncashed checks
and come up empty," Wolfe said. "Now, a decade after I give up the
search, in the proud mood of someone's who's finally turned real after a
fool's lifetime playing the numbers, my number comes up, and I'm
oblivious of it. Makes me feel like a kid again."
Oliver Sacks, the sometimes absent-minded neurology professor and
author, is owed an insurance refund. "Actually some years ago, I forbade
Oliver opening the mail himself, as I used to find too many checks he
overlooked in the discarded envelopes," his assistant, Kate Edgar, said.
"He's fundamentally not that interested in money, and I suppose if
Empire, whoever they are, owe him money, it's my fault."
Public agencies, from villages to the United Nations, are also owed
money. New York City regularly reviews the list and claimed almost $1
million last year, but many agencies and jurisdictions are much less
diligent; there are 78 unclaimed accounts held in the name of the Bronx
county clerk, and 53 for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Despite New York's reputation as a high-tax state, sometimes the
government can't even give money away. Among those with unclaimed
accounts is the conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who has described
the state, which owes her money, as a "Pottersville" - the evil twin of
Bedford Falls from "It's a Wonderful Life."
Alluding to the investigation of missing emails from an Internal Revenue
Service official whom Republicans have accused of improper handling of
conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status, Ms. Coulter
said, "I think the I.R.S. owes me money, too, but apparently some of
their records were lost."
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