Thanks to his Treasure Finders program, Kentucky Treasurer Todd Hollenbach found Fred Meyer, a retired engineer from Louisville, and turned over to him nearly half a million dollars in unclaimed property.
Meyer’s good fortune is the result of a Treasure Finders Pilot project by Treasurer Hollenbach to seek out the rightful owners of high dollar unclaimed properties in Jefferson and Fayette counties.
“Our thinking is if we can solve these hard to find high profile claims,” Hollenbach said, “We can encourage others to search for their unclaimed property.”
Meyers’ story began in the 60s when he purchased an apple computer for his then 10-year- old son. He was so impressed with the computer, he decided to buy some stock in the company, 400 shares at $2 a share!
Over the years, the account was taken over by different brokers and Meyer lost track of the stock. Finally in 2008, by law the latest broker reported the stock to the state Treasury as abandoned property after failing to locate Meyer the previous three years.
Four years later the Treasury sold the stock and placed the value in the unclaimed property data base. The stock had split and its value in 2012 was $461,000.
A month ago, Treasurer Hollenbach’s staff, using the latest search technology, located Meyer, processed his claim and handed him a check.
You can search for unclaimed property by going to MissingMoney.com or by calling toll free 800-465-4722.
Recently, at the state fair, Hollenbach had a Treasure Finders booth. During the 12 days of the fair, he and his team helped fairgoers file a record 5000 claims for more than $760,000.
One Louisville woman discovered an unclaimed insurance policy worth $4000 while a young man from Fayette County found a $50 utility deposit refund that he’d forgotten about. Those are just a couple of the hundreds of stories behind the thousands of claims started at the Treasure Finders booth.
“I attribute the record numbers to our all-digital unclaimed property list. Folks were able to come right up to the booth and search our unclaimed database on one of several laptops with my staff providing assistance in getting the claims process started,” Hollenbach said.
In his eight years as Kentucky Treasure, Todd Hollenbach has returned more than $135-million dollars worth of unclaimed property to the rightful owners of Kentucky through his Treasure Finders program.