Of the literally tens of billions of dollars in unclaimed property across the nation, over a billion of it is in the state MA alone. Massachusetts unclaimed money continues to roll in at an average of more than 200 million dollars annually, which far exceeds the amount of money returned to its owners, so that 1 billion dollars will only keep on growing.

Although there have been recent efforts to reunite the citizens with their money, the MA Dept. of the State Treasurer keeps on taking in more missing money than it gives back each year. The reason? There are a handful of them, but the primary reason is because most people still haven't accepted the reality of these monies. To start with, many haven't even heard of unclaimed property, and a large percentage of those who have often quickly dismiss the phenomenon as some type of scam because they can not believe that people could actually forget about tens of billions of dollars. Of the very few who do recognize that this cash is out there, only a tiny percentage are educated enough to perform a proper search and take back all of what is rightfully theirs'.

The folks who have never even heard of unclaimed property will eventually figure things out, but for the time being they are on their own. For those who hold the "too good to be true" position, and assume this can't be real, all they need to do is call their state's treasury department and inquire. They'll be pleasantly surprised and anxious to start searching. Those people who are are hoping to get their unclaimed asset search started ought to learn tips from an expert before spending a lot of time and potentially not getting anywhere.

MA citizens often try to find MA unclaimed property by just searching their name on the first site they come to. This strategy could not be more incorrect. To start with, a lot of these sites are claiming to have a "database" when in reality they are using bogus databases filled with name combinations to give results showing a claim is owed for just about every name, whether there is or not. Aside from these bogus databases, even the state's unclaimed listings can be very out of date.

According to the State Treasurer, unclaimed property in MA come in a variety of types including the following: unpaid wages or commissions, savings accounts, checking accounts, stocks, underlying shares, uncashed dividends, customer deposits or overpayments, certificates of deposit, credit balances, refunds, gift certificates, uncashed benefit checks, safe deposit boxes, paid-up life insurance policies, and money orders. These are considered abandoned after a certain number of years of inactivity (usually 3, but up to 15 depending on the type).

Until a property is deemed "abandoned", it is not handed over to the state, and that is why a search might not return any records in your name. Additionally, the state doesn't immediately put records in the listings the minute they take hold of them. It all depends on when the state finds the time to have an employee manually add the data to their system. For this reason you need to search frequently. A one time search will not cut it if you want to be confident you've explored all possible sources.

On top of the issues noted above, there are many other obstacles that often make the difference in whether someone in the Bay State tracks down their missing money or not. It would behoove anyone who is serious about tracking down real cash to seek the advice of someone with experience in this area before getting in the game.