(Part 2 of 2)

An extra $150 is enough to brighten anyone's day, but in another report by NewsOK, a resident of the city of Norman, Oklahoma came away with a lot more than that . The lucky missing cash owner was given back $30,000 from some lost AT&T stock shares he had forgotten all about. According to Tim Allen, spokesman for the State Treasury office, the stocks were sold by the State and the cash was placed in the state's Unclaimed Money Fund until the citizen found and claimed them.

Unclaimed properties are intangible financial assets (except for safe deposit box contents) that have been deemed 'abandoned' by the owners. State law requires these funds to be turned over to the state after a period of inactivity. According to the Oklahoma Department of Treasury website, "Evidence of this inactivity includes failure to cash a check, the return of a check or correspondence by the Post Office as undeliverable, or the absence of any communication from the owner."

According to the General Provisions of Oklahoma's Unclaimed Money Rules, qualifying 'intangible property' comes from the following sources: (A) monies, checks, drafts, deposits, interests, dividends and income; (B) credit balances, customer overpayments, gift certificates, security deposits, refunds, credit memos, unpaid wages, unused airline tickets, and unidentified remittances; (C) stocks and other intangible ownership interests in business associations; (D) monies deposited to redeem stocks, bonds, coupons and other securities, or to make distributions; (E) amounts payable and due under the terms of insurance policies; (F) amounts payable and due under the terms of mining or mineral leases; and (G) distributable amounts from trusts or custodial funds created with a plan to provide profit sharing, stock purchase, supplemental unemployment insurance, employee savings, welfare, health, pension, severance, vacation, death, retirement, among other benefits.

People lose track of these assets after they move and do not remember to leave behind a forwarding address resulting in uncashed and lost checks and the like. Death is also a common cause of financial assets being abandoned especially if there's no will and the next of kin cannot be located. Most of the time, unclaimed property owners simply forget about their finances in the rush of day to day living.

Residents of Oklahoma and other states should check and do an internet unclaimed property search. They may just find out the government owes them cash this time and not the other way around.

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Mass. treasurer says
For local municipalities, it’s the equivalent of finding

Area towns get share of state's unclaimed property
Local towns are among the 124 municipalities receiving a share of the unclaimed property money from the State Treasurer's Office.

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