New York Finds $1.67M in Unclaimed Funds Belonging to . . . New York? A Lesson in Claiming

According to an article in Monday's Daily News by Erin Durkin, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James and her staff found over $1.67M in over 2,000 accounts held by the New York Office of Unclaimed Funds on behalf of New York City agencies, departments, and organizations.  As the article notes, many of the accounts may have been missed in earlier reviews by the City because of owner names in the state database that might have been abbreviated or misspelled.

The article raises an important lesson for owners searching the state's database for unclaimed property -- the information in the state's database is only as good as what gets reported.  If an owner's name is abbreviated or misspelled on the holder's report, it will probably be that way on the state's database.  So, in searching for your property, don't forget to try common or likely misspellings or abbreviations of your (or your company's) name.  For example, if you were searching for property held for the Alphabet Boat & Cargo Corporation, you might be well advised to run searches for all of the following:
  • Alphabet Boat & Cargo
  • Alphabet Boat and Cargo
  • Alphabet Boat + Cargo
  • Alphabett Boat Cargo (or other misspellings)
  • Cargo, Alphabet Boat (in case reported in Last Name, First Name format) 
  • ABC Corp
  • ABC Company
The article also serves as a reminder to holders to try to report owner names accurately and consistently.  Doing so will make it more likely that the owner can locate his or her property in the future.



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