|
|
|
State Treasurer Dan Rutherford is working to reunite residents of the state with unclaimed property and money which many did not know to which they were entitled.
Rutherford stopped by Five Points Washington July 13 to promote Cash Dash, a program that finds unclaimed assets from sources including forgotten bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and un-cashed checks and wages.
“As the treasurer of the state of Illinois, I receive what’s called unclaimed property and hold it in the name of the person until it’s returned to the rightful owner,” he said.
Rutherford said there is about $1.5 billion in property that he is currently holding.
“We’ll have contents from lock boxes,” he said. “It might be gold coins. It might be jewelry. It might be family photos. It might be wills.
His visit to central Illinois also included stops in Peoria, East Peoria and Morton.
While the ongoing properties provision has been around for 50 years, Rutherford said today’s technology has made it much easier to reunite the property with its owner.
“We have put it on Facebook. We’ve put it on Twitter. We’ve got it so that it’s capable to search on the Internet,” he said. “Technologies today are different than what they have been before. It just astonishes me how much is actually sitting there.”
A person whose name is on the list does not find out what the treasurer’s office is holding until after they have been verified. Rutherford said he was able to make a pretty exciting phone call recently to let a woman know what, exactly, he had that belonged to her.
“I picked up the phone to call her and tell her, ‘Yes, this is Dan Rutherford, the state treasurer, and I’m ready to send you $112,000 worth of stock certificates in your name,” he said. “She just kind of gasped.”
Many of the items that his office is holding, he added, are not quite as extravagant.
“Most of the things we are holding are $25, $50 or $100 worth of value, but there are some life-changing moments,” he said.
Rutherford also opened the vault at the Illinois State Treasury and gave tours last week — something that has not been done before. The vault houses about 100,000 items of unclaimed property.
“The challenge, obviously, is just the sheer volume of property to actually house in a secure way,” he said. “So unfortunately after five years we will look at the items and eventually have to put it on auction.”
If the owner is located after their property has been auctioned, that person would then receive the cash value that came from the auction.
“It is not title and property of the state,” he said. “It is the individual’s. I’m just the caretaker for it until we have the opportunity to put them back together.”
For more information, or to conduct a search, visit treasurer.il.gov.
State Treasurer Dan Rutherford is working to reunite residents of the state with unclaimed property and money which many did not know to which they were entitled.
Rutherford stopped by Five Points Washington July 13 to promote Cash Dash, a program that finds unclaimed assets from sources including forgotten bank accounts, safe deposit boxes, stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and un-cashed checks and wages.
“As the treasurer of the state of Illinois, I receive what’s called unclaimed property and hold it in the name of the person until it’s returned to the rightful owner,” he said.
Rutherford said there is about $1.5 billion in property that he is currently holding.
“We’ll have contents from lock boxes,” he said. “It might be gold coins. It might be jewelry. It might be family photos. It might be wills.
His visit to central Illinois also included stops in Peoria, East Peoria and Morton.
While the ongoing properties provision has been around for 50 years, Rutherford said today’s technology has made it much easier to reunite the property with its owner.
“We have put it on Facebook. We’ve put it on Twitter. We’ve got it so that it’s capable to search on the Internet,” he said. “Technologies today are different than what they have been before. It just astonishes me how much is actually sitting there.”
A person whose name is on the list does not find out what the treasurer’s office is holding until after they have been verified. Rutherford said he was able to make a pretty exciting phone call recently to let a woman know what, exactly, he had that belonged to her.
“I picked up the phone to call her and tell her, ‘Yes, this is Dan Rutherford, the state treasurer, and I’m ready to send you $112,000 worth of stock certificates in your name,” he said. “She just kind of gasped.”
Many of the items that his office is holding, he added, are not quite as extravagant.
“Most of the things we are holding are $25, $50 or $100 worth of value, but there are some life-changing moments,” he said.
Rutherford also opened the vault at the Illinois State Treasury and gave tours last week — something that has not been done before. The vault houses about 100,000 items of unclaimed property.
“The challenge, obviously, is just the sheer volume of property to actually house in a secure way,” he said. “So unfortunately after five years we will look at the items and eventually have to put it on auction.”
If the owner is located after their property has been auctioned, that person would then receive the cash value that came from the auction.
“It is not title and property of the state,” he said. “It is the individual’s. I’m just the caretaker for it until we have the opportunity to put them back together.”
For more information, or to conduct a search, visit treasurer.il.gov.
