Member for Kiama Gareth Ward and Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock are encouraging local residents to check if they have any lost or unclaimed money, with the NSW Government launching a new campaign to try to reunite close to $140 million of unclaimed funds with its rightful owners.
“With Christmas fast approaching, and many people doing their tax, money is always on everyone’s minds this time of the year,” Mr Ward said.
“The NSW Government, through the Office of State Revenue, currently holds more than 305,000 items of unclaimed money valued at $139,372,419 (as at 4 September).
“Ideally we would like to see these funds going back to the rightful owners.
“Often money gets lost when people move house or change address and fail to notify the issuer, such as a bank, financial institution or utility company.”
Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock said common items of unclaimed money include refunds, overpayments, cheques, interest payments, proceeds of sale and even unclaimed royalties.
“More than $21 million in unclaimed money had been successfully returned over the last two years," she said.
“A similar campaign in January meant that we were able to return more than 6000 items in the months following, totalling in excess of $7.5 million.
“Claims do vary and could be as little as $20 for minor dividends, though at this time of year every dollar counts.”
NSW Minister for Finance and Services Dominic Perrottet said that unclaimed money could be found for free on the Office of State Revenue’s (OSR) website.
“OSR has a free Unclaimed Money tool available on their website. It is quick, easy to use and only takes around five minutes to find what could potentially be thousands of dollars.
“While there are a number of commercial providers that can help to find your lost money, I would recommend everyone first try to find it using the OSR website,” Minister Perrottet said.
For more information or to see if you have any unclaimed money, visit the website at: www.osr.nsw.gov.au/ucm/search.
