State holding unclaimed millions — and some may be for you

More than $300 million is languishing with the state of Washington, and few of us know it's ours.

The money belongs to Gary Payton, Pearl Jam, Nordstrom, possibly your neighbor and almost definitely to one out of seven people you know.

When the city of Seattle heard it was due at least $900 in unclaimed property, the mayor's spokeswoman Marianne Bichsel joked about a possible solution to the budget crisis. That was before a few phone calls to the city's treasury department revealed that the $900-plus actually wasn't new money — that city staffers had been monitoring the sum all along.

But Alan Merkle, mayor of Mercer Island, had better luck. Sure, he found only $30.24, but it was $30.24 he didn't know he had.

"I'll buy me a couple of iced lattes," he said, before reprimanding himself for being so glib. "Or I'll have lunch with my wife during the week sometime — a special treat."

Whether it's nickels and dimes, or a stack of six-figure checks, there's a 1-in-7 chance that you — yes, even finance-savvy you — forgot to collect some cash at one point.

Fortunately, the law requires all corporations to report outstanding funds to the state.

"I'm always amazed at how many people don't know," said Patti Wilson, operations manager for Washington state's unclaimed-property section. "And there's a good chance that if you don't have anything, someone you know has unclaimed property."

But what is it? And how do you get your hands on it?

Unclaimed property includes uncashed checks, insurance refunds, returns from utility-company deposits, interest-accrued money in forgotten bank accounts, stocks and bonds.

The average claim runs between $50 and $100. The largest that Frank Marshall, unclaimed-property locator for the state's Department of Revenue, has dealt with was for $150,000.

Anyone can look up names on the state's free Unclaimed Property Database — ucp.dor.wa.gov/ — to check for owed money.

The site is part of a consumer-protection program, and commercial use of the data is considered illegal.

Any amount exceeding $75 is indicated simply as "over $75." Money can remain at the state indefinitely.

Companies nationwide are required to turn over outstanding sums to the state, whether it's a penny or thousands of dollars, after one to five years of considering it abandoned (this varies depending on the type of property). The law requires that companies try to contact owners only when the sum is more than $75.

It's Marshall's job — or that of anyone who runs a business as a locator — to look up who's owed what. But locating a locator isn't so easy, as the state doesn't require small-business-license holders to specify their field.

The state says you don't really need a private locator because you can search the unclaimed-property database yourself.

In Washington, locators are not allowed to charge more than 5 percent of the value returned. Some states prohibit locators from charging any fees during a property's first two years with the state, after which the fee can run as high as 20 percent of the returned property.

Some Internet businesses charge a flat fee to search names instead of taking a cut of any property that may turn up.

"They've been hitting people's inboxes pretty heavily," Wilson said of the barrage of e-mails that locators send as advertisements.

Marshall, in dealing with a spam-guarding and telemarketer-phobic clientele, said he's learned to blurt, "I'm not a telemarketer — I am with the Washington State Department of Revenue."

Still, some people hang up.

He remembers one woman, who was owed $60,000, hanging up twice before her husband finally picked up the phone and listened. They laughed and made arrangements for the couple to pursue the claim. Claims generally take up to 60 days to process.

But in some cases, like Payton's and that of one state resident who has told Marshall he just doesn't need $76,000 enough to claim it, people won't come forward.

"I've sent out claims to Gary Payton," Marshall said. "I bunched them all together. I sent them to all the addresses I could find for him — he wouldn't claim them."

In the case of the elderly man who doesn't want his $76,000, Marshall for about a year has tried to coax the man to at least claim and deposit the money in a savings account.

"It's kind of bewildering to me," Marshall said. "But that's the one thing I've learned: It's the smaller ones — in the $1,000 to $1,500 range — that sometimes have more impact on a person's life."

He's been thanked by people who bought medicine with their found money, by a new mom who bought a minivan and by children whose parents' health-care coverage was dramatically improved thanks to Marshall's search work.

In cases where the locator can't find the owner or a surviving heir, the money is turned over to the state's school fund or other general fund.

"But if any heirs do come forward, they still have to get it back," Marshall said.

Other notable residents and businesses with money sitting in the state database: Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament; Seattle City Councilwoman Margaret Pageler; "Snow Falling on Cedars" author David Guterson (who says he has no idea why he's owed $50 to $75 from Kitsap Physicians Service); Starbucks; Costco; and Seattle Times' Executive Editor Michael Fancher, who recently discovered two expense checks for about $524 that he never cashed.

One was from 1988 and the other from 1990. Fancher pointed to a busy string of years between 1986, when he became executive editor, through 1991, when he had twin daughters, as reasons he might have overlooked the checks or assumed they would have been deposited directly into the bank.

"I'm a little bit like the absent-minded professor," he said.

Vedder, who can claim more than $75 reported by the state of California, and bassist Jeff Ament, who's in for $25 to $50, declined to comment on their forgotten funds. But the band's publicist, Nicole Vandenberg, said the duo would likely put the money to grand use.

"Up to legal limits, they would probably like to apply it toward efforts to elect a new president," she said.

Merkle, who readily admitted to being "terrible at cashing checks," confessed that he didn't cash checks received for being on the Mercer Island City Council for more than two years when he first started serving.

"The finance director called me up and said, 'You're making quite a mess of my books,' " Merkle said. "But I've gotten better at this."

Young Chang: 206-748-5815 or ychang@seattletimes.com