ABOUT $3 million of “lost money” belonging to 5923 individuals and businesses in the Latrobe Valley area are waiting for their rightful owners to reclaim it.
According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, its database on unclaimed money by Valley residents amounted to $2.89 million, 0.4 per cent of its total unclaimed money of $677 million.
“Until you look, you’ll never know if you or your family have unclaimed money,” ASIC commissioner Peter Kell said in a statement.
“You might not know it yet, but you could have thousands of dollars sitting in an old bank account, shares, or a life insurance policy.”
According to ASIC, persons could have unclaimed money if they moved without leaving a forwarding address, have not made a transaction on cheque or savings accounts for more than seven years, stopped making regular payments on a life insurance policy, or were the executor of a deceased estate.
In some instances, ASIC said there were large parcels of money all over the country, including $992,750 from a dormant bank account in Carlisle, Western Australia and $286,165 from a matured life insurance policy in Camberwell, near Melbourne.
To discover if you have missing money, visit ASIC’s MoneySmart website at www.moneysmart.gov.au; follow the link to unclaimed money, and type in your name.
“If you find some money that you think might be yours, you will need to prove the money belongs to you or that you are the beneficiary; information on how to make a claim is also available on the MoneySmart website,” a statement from ASIC said.
