State Treasury working to return Mississippians unclaimed money

PINE BELT, Miss. (WDAM) - Feb. 1 is National Unclaimed Property Day, and State Treasurer David McRae is taking the opportunity to remind Mississippians how to find their unclaimed property.

“Unclaimed property it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s really money, not physical property. Companies such as energy companies may have people who have moved addresses and deposits can’t come back to them. Or they’ve moved bank accounts, and the companies can find them. This money comes to the state treasury, and it’s our job here at the Treasury to find the rightful owner of this money,” explains McRae.

The treasury is making it easy to see if you have unclaimed property with an online search tool. You can easily search by your name, see if you have unclaimed property, and get directions on how to get that money back.

“Unclaimed property lasts as long as it’s there, it will not go away. So if you don’t think, maybe you lost something 15 years ago, there’s a good chance it’s just sitting up here, and it’s a good time to go to the website (treasury.ms.gov) and search and see just because again, it may have been 15 years ago that you lost it. It doesn’t mean it’s gone, and it is easy to claim, and we want to get it back,” says McRae.

According to the treasury, one in 10 Mississippians has unclaimed property. The Treasury has returned more than $40 million in unclaimed property since January 2020.

“The average claim is roughly $2,100. But we’ve had people claim from just as much as $100 to half a million dollars. So I’m excited myself personally if I just find some money in my pocket that I didn’t know exists, so how excited would you be if you go to the website today, and type in your name, and it’s just any amount of money. It’s money that’s owed to you as money you didn’t have yesterday as money you can use for whatever you want,” explains McRae.

Copyright 2022 WDAM. All rights reserved.

Want more WDAM 7 news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.