The Commonwealth of Virginia is waiting for citizens to come forward and claim their lost money. The state currently sits atop a heap of VA unclaimed cash totaling in the tens of millions of dollars. More than $27 million was returned to Virginians in 2005, but that's only a fraction of what is available for claim. Virginia, like every other state, continues to take in more unclaimed money than it doles out, primarily because most people simply are unaware of these funds, and those that are aware, don't know the proper way to locate them. There is a right way and a wrong way to search, and sadly most people haven't been taught the right way.
According to the Unclaimed Property Division of the VA Department of the Treasury, Virginia unclaimed money comes from a number of sources, which include (but are not limited to): “savings and checking accounts, wages or commissions, underlying shares, dividends, customer deposits, credit balances, gift certificates, credit memos, refunds”.
A person doesn't have to currently reside in Virginia to be owed unclaimed funds, especially since most accounts must be dormant for 1 to 3 years before they're turned over to the state, and laws governing other types don't require that they be turned over for 7, 10, even 15 years! Leaving the state doesn't mean you've forfeited the money by any means.
In addition to people who've moved out of state, others may have never lived in Virginia. For example, some folks work for companies that have their headquarters in VA. Additionally, insurance companies are often based outside of the state of the insured person. For these reasons, things like stocks, premium overpayments, and refunds might exist as unclaimed cash in Virginia, even if the rightful owner has never even visited the state!
People who live in Virginia should also search in other states where there's a chance they're due a claim, for the same reasons that people who don't live in VA should search the Commonwealth's records.
There are a number of roadblocks that often prevent people from tracking down their missing money, but they mostly boil down to being uninformed about the best way to search. Not only do most people get in their own way by searching only one state, usually the one they live in, but they also tend to search once and call it quits.
As was mentioned earlier, each type of Virginia unclaimed property, and unclaimed property in all other states, have their own unique “dormancy periods” (years that must pass before the funds are turned over to the state to hold until you claim them). In addition to some property types having long dormancy periods, states don't update their searchable databases in real time, which means if the state is holding your funds, you may not find a record when searching, if they haven't added it to their system.
If a person searches their name on Monday, but the Virginia Department of Unclaimed Property didn't get around to adding the record of their funds until Tuesday, or the following week or month, the search might return a false negative.
These are just a few of the issues that often stand in the way of people trying to find VA unclaimed money for the first time, which is why it is imperative that you find someone with experience in this field to guide you through the process to find all possible claims.
Unclaimed money and property expert Russ Johnson has been assisting Americans in finding their unclaimed money online since 1997. His site is http://www.unclaimedmoney.net which is updated regularly and offers guaranteed official searches for Virginia unclaimed money and missing money across the country.
