Questions people actually ask

It is a fair thing to ask, because there is a real scam that looks like this: someone tells you the government owes you money, then asks for a fee up front to release it. There is no such fee, and anyone who asks for one is stealing from you.

Here is how to check us in two minutes. Take the amount and the company name we showed you, go to the California State Controller's own search, and look up your name. The record will be there, because that is where we got it. If it is not, walk away from us.

We never ask for money before you are paid, and we never ask for a bank account number at all — the state pays you directly.

Every state has an escheat law. If a company holds money for you and cannot reach you for a set period — typically three years — it is legally required to hand that money to the state rather than keep it. The state then holds it indefinitely until someone claims it.

It is usually mundane: you moved and a bank closed a dormant account, an employer sent a final paycheque to an old address, an insurer owed a small refund, a utility returned a deposit, a broker held shares you forgot about. Nobody did anything wrong. The mail just stopped arriving.

For a lot of people, you should not. If the money is in your own name, at an address you can still document, and the amount is modest, filing direct is genuinely straightforward and we will point you to the form.

People hire us when the claim is not that:

• The owner has died and the claim now needs probate documents and a family tree.
• The money is under a business that no longer exists.
• It is securities, which routes to a different unit and a much longer process.
• You cannot prove you lived at a 1998 address because you no longer have a single piece of paper from 1998.
• You filed once already, got a request for more documents, and gave up.

That last one is the most common. A large share of unclaimed property stays unclaimed not because nobody knows about it, but because someone started and the paperwork beat them.

10% of what is actually recovered, and nothing if nothing is recovered. No retainer, no hourly rate, no filing fee, no expenses. If the state pays you $14,000 we invoice $1,400 after the money is in your hands.

Most states cap what a firm like us can charge. Some cap it at 10%; a few allow 20% or even 30%. We charge 10% everywhere, including where we could legally charge triple. The cap for every state is on our coverage page.

Because the state claim form requires it. The state matches the SSN you give against the one the original company reported when it handed over the money. Without that match, the claim is rejected.

You do not need to give us anything to search. The SSN is only collected once you have found a record, confirmed it is yours, and decided to file.

We store it encrypted in a separate system from the rest of our records, and our main database keeps only the last four digits. It goes to the state on your claim form and nowhere else. We do not sell data.

California typically pays an approved cash claim in three to six months from a complete filing. Securities claims routinely take six to twelve, because the shares have to be liquidated or reissued.

The single biggest cause of delay is an incomplete filing — the state writes back asking for one more document, and the clock restarts. Getting the packet right the first time is most of what you are paying us for.

Those claims are often the largest, and they are the ones most worth handing to someone else. You will need a certified death certificate and proof of your right to inherit — probate letters, a will, or a small-estate affidavit depending on the amount and the state.

If several heirs are involved, the state will generally want all of them to sign or to formally waive. We handle that coordination.

Recovering unclaimed property is usually not itself taxable — it is your own money being returned. But the underlying character matters: interest, dividends or unpaid wages can be taxable in the year received, and the state may issue a 1099.

We are not accountants and this is not tax advice. For a large recovery, spend an hour with a CPA before you file.

From the state. California publishes its entire unclaimed property database as a public file, including the name and address the original company had on record. That is the address the money is filed under, which is why it is often one you left decades ago.

If you would rather we never contact you again, tell us here and we will suppress you permanently. No reply needed, no hard feelings.

Only people who have asked us to, by ticking a box on this site. We do not send marketing texts to numbers we obtained from data vendors — it is illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and we think it is obnoxious besides.

Our cold outreach is a letter in the post, and it always tells you how to stop it.