Some Find Treasure At ‘Unclaimed’ Booth At County Fair

How to find out if you have unclaimed property:
* In Virginia – vamoneysearch.com
* Anywhere in the United States – missingmoney.com

ABINGDON, Va. – They all had similar stories. Several local residents walked by the fair booth, checked for their name in the computer, then got the paperwork to collect their money.

State Treasury officials and Washington County Treasurer Fred Parker are set up at a booth at the county fair this week to help people find unclaimed property – often money they know nothing about.

Brooke Bredel, spokeswoman for the Treasury Department’s Division of Unclaimed Property, said one in seven Virginians has unclaimed property.

“They have a lot better odds of having unclaimed property ... than they would of winning the lottery,” Bredel said.

“It’s just hard to get the word out because nobody believes it. We send out letters to people [owed] over $1,000 and say we may have property waiting for you. They say, ‘Is this a scam?’ ”

She said the money is sent to the division when checks are not cashed or accounts sit dormant for a certain period of time.

“You’ve got things like uncashed paychecks, tax returns ... dividends and stock ... we even have insurance claims and mature policies,” Bredel said.

State government holds the money in perpetuity.

Some local residents already have hit it big at the fair. One Washington County woman, who asked that her name not be used for fear of being hounded by people seeking money, stopped at the booth out of curiosity and learned that she and her brother own more than $160,000 worth of stocks that belonged to a dead relative.

“It’s Senior Day, and I came to the fair as a senior, and I just asked them what they were doing [at the booth],” she said. “It’s always good to have extra money. You don’t know; there might be a little bit out there.”

Abingdon resident John K. Clark said he will use his share of more than $600 owed to him and four siblings to “buy some gasoline.”

Betsy Mathews, also of Abingdon, said she was “terribly excited” when she learned that her son’s business might be owed several hundred dollars. “It’s an interesting concept. I know that unclaimed funds existed, but I never had any part of it,” she said.

Bredel said more than $12,000 in unclaimed money had been returned by early Tuesday afternoon – not including stocks, safe deposit boxes and other unclaimed property.

She said the computer system includes more than 40 years worth of unclaimed property and that, in just the past year, more than $5.3 million in cash has entered the system under 11,183 names in western Virginia alone, along with 157,695 shares of stock.

The dollar figure includes $65,373 owed in amounts of more than $100 in Abingdon and $145,387 owed in amounts more than $100 in Bristol, Va., Bredel said.

Parker, the county treasurer, said even he learned he was owed money – albeit only $2.98.

“It’s just something I thought of this summer, and from now on, it’ll probably be a pretty normal occurrence,” he said of the fair booth. “Come by the booth and see if [your] name’s in the system.”

Representatives of the state treasury department will be at the fair through Thursday night.

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