LITTLE ROCK – Each year millions of dollars in unclaimed property—un-cashed checks, bank accounts, utility deposits, and stock certificates—are turned over to the State by companies who cannot locate the owners. Many Arkansans, who want to find out if they have any unclaimed property, decide to pay a third party to search for them. Unfortunately, those Arkansans later discover that paying for such a service was unnecessary. Thus, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel issued this consumer alert to advise consumers to avoid using third party search services, as they can locate unclaimed property easily and free of charge.
“People selling search services often don’t tell the consumer that the records they are searching through are publicly available and free to use,” said McDaniel. “If you have Internet access, you don’t need to pay somebody $20 to do an online search that you could easily do on your own in 10 minutes.”
The Office of the Arkansas Auditor maintains a Web site, http://www.state.ar.us/auditor/unclprop/, which consumers can access for free to search for any unclaimed property or money in their name. In addition, consumers can search for unclaimed property nationwide by accessing the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators Web site, http://www.unclaimed.org/. This service is free of charge as well.
“Consumers rarely have to pay to get something that is rightfully theirs,” said McDaniel. “Remembering this cardinal rule can save Arkansans a lot of time, trouble and most importantly, a lot of their hard-earned money.”
