Asset Recovery of Unclaimed Funds

Over the course of my career of 35-plus years, I'd would say that the most interesting and satisfying work has been investigative work. Some call it forensic accounting, but I prefer not to use that term because it is most familiar to people when used in criminal matters. Another term that applies to this work is Asset Recovery.

It's probably the enjoyment that comes from the "hunt." I've always been on the lookout for information that leads to the recovery of assets, both monetary and tangible. With my unclaimed funds work, once I find the money, I have to locate the company or person to which the money belongs. The longer the money has been sitting dormant, the more likely that some changes have occurred which add to the challenge. Companies have closed, merged, been acquired; people have moved, changed names or have passed-away.

Also, it's never boring. I keep finding more and better resources to do the necessary research. I'm developing ways of being creative and letting my curiosity take me to new and interesting places. I believe that it results in finding and recovering assets that others have missed.

I take real pleasure in reuniting money with its owner when the money has been sitting dormant, often for decades. A recent example involved money that went missing when the man was in his early 40's and now he is in his early 80's.

Congress's View on Unclaimed Funds Recovery

As a result of the recent Congressional expenditure of billions of dollars in federal monies directed at keeping companies solvent, the government is now closely scrutinizing companies’ finances and practices. This scrutiny has revealed that many companies receiving bailout money actually have millions of dollars in unclaimed funds, to which they are entitled, but have consistently failed to claim.

US Representative Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, is demanding that such companies recover their unclaimed funds. Chairman Frank believes that if these companies were claiming their monies, there may not be a need for them to take federal bailout money.

Chairman Frank is now calling for a formal Congressional investigation into the failure of businesses to recover unclaimed funds, stating he will be insisting “they tell us what their whole systems [for recovering unclaimed funds] are, how did this happen, and more importantly, how do they stop it from happening in the future."

-As detailed in a March 2009 investigative report featured on Fox 7 Miami and NBC 7 Boston.