SACRAMENTO – State Controller John Chiang today announced his new online claiming feature for unclaimed property has already resulted in nearly $1.1 million in payments with an average wait time of 10 days.
The new eClaim innovation, launched on January 28, allows unclaimed property ownersto claim single-owner accounts worth up to $500 without the “paper and snail-mail”process used since the unclaimed property program was established in 1959.”In less than one month, nearly 15,000 unclaimed property owners were able to claimonline and quickly receive more than one million dollars owed to them without having tomail in forms and wait,” said Chiang. “I am pleased that this technological advancementallows unclaimed property owners a fast and easy way to recover their lost or forgottenaccounts.”
Of the 24.9 million unclaimed property accounts being safeguarded by the Controller’sOffice, 18 million are eligible to be claimed through eClaim, and property owners canexpect to receive payments within 14 days. Depending on feedback and usage, futureeditions of this tool may include a higher qualifying dollar threshold.
For tips on how to use eClaim, watch this tutorial or call the Controller’s UnclaimedProperty Division at (800) 992-4647.
Since January 2007, the Controller has reunited owners with $2.7 billion in cash thathad been lost or forgotten – more than any previous Controller. As of June 2013, theController also returned
181 million shares of securities to owners, which is more than30 times the amount returned to owners during the previous decade.
For more news, please follow the Controller on Twitter at @CAController, and on Facebook at California State Controller’s Office.