Pennies From Heaven
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- August
- 5
It’s no surprise but it seems a lot of people are finding out they’re owed money that’s been sitting in New York state’s “unclaimed funds” kitty. I wrote about it today in my column, after I discovered that a check for a couple of hundred dollars never reached my father while he was alive and working as a freelance writer.
The state comptroller’s office has $9 billion in unclaimed “funds”:http://www.osc.state.ny.us/funds due to lost addresses, misplaced bank and stock accounts, etc. Most people don’t even know they’re entitled to any money until they contact the state. Usually the sums are no more than $100, which explains why they may be forgotten.
Today, I heard from a friend who read my column and discovered that he, too, had money coming to him. An old-timer called to thank me because he called the state and found that he had two outstanding accounts to collect.
“I’ll buy you a bunch of lollipops,” he said.
Not everybody is happy, however. A woman from Briarcliff Manor reported to me that she has had a hard time collecting $4,000 in checks she failed to deposit “in a timely manner.” She said it’s been a tortuous, year-long process trying to prove the money is hers.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 1:51 pm by Phil Reisman.
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Phil Reisman is a veteran journalist and native of Westchester County. He began his career in 1977 as the head copy boy of a startup New York City newspaper that quickly went belly up. Reisman was not to blame for the newspaper's failure, or so he claims.
