El X.500: el servicio de directorio

I bet you are getting the idea now that the places that money is waiting for you are EVERYWHERE. All this lost money needs to be FOUND! Without spending a dime, you can be rolling in FREE MONEY!

Yet another area of unclaimed bucks is Social Security. Are you getting your due? Is your mama? Your grandmother? Your neigh-bor? Your best friend?

Every year about a half billion dollars in Social Security benefit checks are not cashed. Oh my word. The Social Security Administration sends out the checks and if they go uncashed or unclaimed, the govern-ment worker bees do nothing to find the folks.

So once again, the effort falls upon you.

Need Security?

You obviously need to know the social security number of anyone you want to search for benefits. You may be eligible for unclaimed benefits, if you are a beneficiary of a deceased loved one.

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KEVIN TRUDEAU'S FREE MONEY

The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) has a record of reported deaths. This database maintains the social security number, date of birth, date of death, last known address, and payment of final benefit.

Contact the Social Security Administration office in your town or online at their website, www.ssa.gov.

To find a local office, go to https://secure.ssa.gov/apps6z/FOLO/

foOOl.jsp and enter your ZIP code.

So far, in ten chapters, we have covered a lot of ground. There is still much more to cover. Consider all the possibilities:

• Lost stock

• Unclaimed dividends

• Unclaimed inheritance

• IRAs and 401(k)s

• Swiss bank accounts

(I thought this was funny. Missingmoney.com has a link for dormant accounts here too — www.dormantaccounts.ch!)

Swiss Bank Accounts Anyone?

Maybe you have cash squirreled away in a Swiss bank account and forgot about it?! Maybe you have money buried in a box in the backyard. There are a gazillion kinds of found money — and I am not just talking about the change you find when you do the laundry, or under the couch cushions, or in your car.

Those small finds are great, but there is bigger bounty to be had. This information should get the wheels rolling in your head for more places to be proactive and search.

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T h e o d d s are that there i s cash w i t h y o u r

name on it.

KEVIN TRUDEAU'S FREE MONEY

The odds are that there is cash with your name on it. In addition to all I have already expounded upon, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) estimates there are three million lost stockhold-ers who are entitled to unclaimed stock worth $10 BILLION!

And that's not all.

There's another $500 million of bond interest and stock dividends not cashed each year. Ch-ching! Companies merge and restructure all the time now. The constant change means a lot of informa-tion gets lost in the shuffle.

Companies acquire and sell off companies nearly every day. It is hard to keep up. If you had stock in X company, you may now be eligible to receive shares of X company and Y company and Z company.

IRAs

There are also retirement accounts that have unclaimed money.

About 50 million people have Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). At age 70 Vi you have to start taking withdrawals from the IRA. Some such withdrawals are unclaimed or considered abandoned.

Do you feel like the leprechaun looking for the pot of gold?

This is not a mythical search for little green men or rainbows. This cash is real and available.

Many people also have retirement funds in their employer's plans

— 401 (k) plans. Every year about $850 million goes unclaimed.

The usual reason for this missing money is that the company — the employer — has gone bankrupt or gone out of business. The

8 6 | CHAPTER 1 1

money is left with the plan administrator and goes unclaimed by the rightful owners.

Who are the rightful owners? You!

Don't let another year go by without you getting what is right-fully yours.

Gift Cards

Another item that people seldom think about are gift cards.

Yep. You get them as gifts and lose them or forget about them.

Gift cards are big business, especially during the Christmas season.

Don't know what to buy someone? Give them a gift card. We've all done it.

Over $70 billion is spent on gift cards and gift certificates. For whatever reason, many do not get redeemed. It is estimated that somewhere close to ten percent are never cashed in. That could be up to $7 billion.

Gift cards now are considered unclaimed property like all the other assets we have been discussing. Even though the actual gift card may have been lost, destroyed, or even expired, the value still exists and a refund may be entitled.

G i f t cards n o w are c o n s i d e r e d u n c l a i m e d

p r o p e r t y .

Gift cards are now part of the unclaimed asset search system. And what a search system it is. My buddy Paul found $273 owed to him by Bed, Bath & Beyond within seconds!

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KEVIN TRUDEAU'S FREE MONEY

Love that NAUPA

The database at missingmoney.com maintained by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) is a veritable gold mine. There are more possibilities for free money than I have fingers and toes. And all I need are my fingers to do the search. What are you waiting for?

Start panning for your gold!

Canada

I realize we have some readers from Canada or who may have unclaimed assets there. Canada operates a little different from the United States. First of all, Canadian banks have a legal obligation to attempt written notification of account owners after the second and fifth year of inactivity.

I like that. Not sure why the two and five, but a legal obligation to contact owners of the assets is a good thing.

In the ninth year of inactivity — year ten is when assets get trans-ferred over to Bank of Canada — the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) prepares a list of all unclaimed balances of $10 or more and the name of the owner. This list is published in the Canada Gazette, available at all public libraries.

O Canada

So Canada has a notice system in place. Very good.

Bank of Canada then becomes custodian when there has been no account activity for a ten year period and the owner cannot be contacted. Accounts worth $500 or more are held indefinitely until claimed. AND get this — interest is paid at the rate of 1.5% per year for a ten-year period.

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Revenue C a n a d a -h o l d i n g an estimated $ 8

m i l l i o n i n u n c l a i m e d

tax r e f u n d s since 1 9 9 0 .

Make sense so far? If more than $500, it sits forever. If less than $500, you have twenty years to claim it.

Canada has millions of unclaimed money. More than two-thirds of it is sums that are less than $500.

The Bank of Canada has a database to search as well. To check it out and do a search, visit ucbswww.bank-banque-canada.ca. You can also contact it the old fashioned way:

Dormant Account Section: Unclaimed Balances Services Bank of Canada

234 Wellington

Ottawa, ON, K1A 0G9 (888) 891-6398

For tax refunds, their version of the IRS is called Revenue Canada. They are holding an estimated $8 million in unclaimed tax refunds since 1990. There is no time limit on claims, but no interest is paid on amounts refunded. Privacy legislation prevents publication of owner names. Citizens should contact their local tax office for additional information.

KEVIN TRUDEAU'S FREE MONEY

Balances under $500 are retained for twenty years — ten years from the date of the last owner transaction at the bank, with an additional ten year custody period at Bank of Canada. To get the funds, a written claim must be received no later than December 31 of the accounts "last year" — twenty years after the year of the last transaction.

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KEVIN TRUDEAU'S FREE MONEY

Unclaimed asset practices with regard to items other than bank accounts and tax refunds vary by province.

If you are looking into assets for a deceased loved one, you must be able to prove a blood relation. Have date of death and other information available. For info on "how to prove you are an heir," see http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/.

In British Columbia, the Ministry of Finance and Corporate Relations administers the Unclaimed Property Office and maintains a searchable database. This database serves this province only. See http://www.bcunclaimedproperty.bc.ca.

(Source: www.unclaimedassets.com/canada.htm)