One in every ten Pennsylvanians is owed unclaimed property that could be worth thousands of dollars.
That’s according to the State Department of Treasury, which is trying to reunite the valuable items with their rightful owners.
Underneath the State Treasury Department’s Finance Building is the largest operating vault in the county, which contains billions of dollars of unclaimed property.
The vault, used by the Pennsylvania Treasury, was built in 1939, where things like expensive jewelry and old war medals can be found. While there are a lot of interesting things inside the vault, most of the unclaimed property is actually money.
Treasurer Stacy Garrity said that a lot of it comes from safe deposit boxes that are left dormant. These get turned over to the state after three years.
Garrity said, “Maybe the people didn’t even tell their family that they had a safe deposit box and so that’s why it really does take a fair amount of detective work to locate the tangible property owners.”
This past year, the Treasury Department returned $274 million of unclaimed property.
Garrity she hopes that this number will only continue to go up. New legislation unanimously passed through the senate that would allow her department to return money without people having to fill out any paperwork.
“That is the most amount of money ever returned by treasury in a single year and so obviously every year we’re going to keep setting the bar higher,” She said.
“We’re going to keep talking to media outlets like yourself, we’re going to keep giving tours, we’re really going to just keep trying to get the word out there.”
Both Centre and Cambria County have over $19 million available to claim. Garrity said how this money would be better off in the hands of someone that needs it instead of sitting around at the State Capitol.
“The average return is $1,600 and so when you think about it, right now when gas is almost $4 and it’s so expensive to buy groceries that money might go a long way to help families that need a helping hand.”
She encourages everyone to check if they have unclaimed property not only for themselves but also for the ones closest to them.
“Don’t forget to check for your family and friends and, if you have a business, check for your business because it’s not just individuals who have unclaimed property. But, again, we have $4.5 billion, it is not the state’s money, it is the people’s money and we want to get it back to them.”
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