Regional News

State Treasury Works To Return Unclaimed Funds

SALEM, OR -- Around $10 million in unclaimed money will go out to current and former Oregonians over the next six months. State Treasurer Tobias Read says when his office took over the Unclaimed Property Program from the Department of State Lands about a year ago, he wanted to streamline the process of returning money to its rightful owner even without an official claim. "When we can verify a person’s identity, we can make sure that we have the address and all that information correctly, we don’t need to wait for people to come to us; we can send money to them," Read tells KBND News. 

Round one will begin in February, with unclaimed funds reported in 2018. Treasury will attempt to send checks to more than 8,600 people around the country. Read says, "Even if you don’t happen to get a check in this round, people can always go to our website and search." Round two is in April, for unclaimed money reported in 2019. And 2020’s funds will go out in June. 

Read admits the check could be mistaken for a scam, "We certainly appreciate people being cautious about that. But it’s important for people to remember what this is: In a lot of cases, this is the deposit you paid on your deposit many years ago and forgot about; or it’s the last check for a job you had many years ago. In many cases, this is not a life-changing amount of money, but it’s money that is owed to Oregonians." Amounts could vary between $50 and $10,000. 

After June, Read’s office plans to run the Checks Without Claims program annually, although the majority of the money will still be returned through online claims.

 

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