Due Diligence is the act of sending letters to lost owners or publishing their names in newspapers. Almost every state and every jurisdiction within a state requires companies to perform due diligence. Benefits Due diligence not only benefits owners of unclaimed property, it can also benefit your business. Many of your lost owners are customers […]
Many times in my twelve years of providing customer support, I’ve heard, “This is my first time reporting and I don’t know what to do. Can you help me?” My heart goes out to those people because I know how daunting it can be to figure out how to get a report to the state. […]
Finding the best way to manage unclaimed property risk is very challenging, especially if you are filing for the first time and not under state audit. If you find your company is in an initial compliance situation you need to immediately initiate an outreach program and make every effort to contact the owners of the […]
Many people hear about the exemptions that states allow for unclaimed property reporting, and they get very excited. Free money, right? What could go wrong? I will share what I know about exemptions and let you decide. Let’s start with a simple kind of exemption. Some states exempt reporting of gift cards or gift […]
Of course it is! A lost dog wandering the streets is fairly easy to identify as lost, and his location doesn’t change your ownership. You know that the lost and found box at the front desk is there to reunite you with something you misplaced, but how do you identify what is ‘abandoned’ or ‘unclaimed’ […]
“We have less than $1,000 to submit, we’ll just do it ourselves.” Does this thought process sound familiar? The thought is if it’s a small amount, it doesn’t matter nearly as much. It’s totally understandable for one to think along these lines. Unfortunately, the states may disagree with you. Regardless of the dollar amount or […]
Companies are always looking for simplified ways of handling the entire unclaimed property process. As an example, generating reports to be remitted to the state(s) has come a long way in the software vendor world. Electronic reporting can minimize or eliminate manual efforts such as downloading state files to CD’s, printing coversheets, and mailing individual […]
Many people hear about state exemptions for unclaimed property reporting, and they get very excited. Free money, what could go wrong? I will share what I know about exemptions and let you decide. Let’s start with a simple kind of exemption. Some states exempt reporting of gift cards or gift certificates that do not have […]
Part of a 2017 amendment to Delaware’s unclaimed property law has left many people confused. According to Del. Code Ann. tit. 12, § 1170(b), if the state feels that a report is inaccurate or incomplete the company may be selected for a compliance review. There is not a clear definition to which the policy applies in […]
Being Partially Compliant is Better Than Not Being Compliant At All Every single company is required to not only file unclaimed property reports to the state, but also follow the law when it comes to conducting due diligence in attempting to locate lost owners, documenting those attempts, and not reporting the property as unclaimed until the […]
We have found that many companies who think they are in compliance when it comes to unclaimed property laws and regulations are not fully compliant. It isn’t until they are audited and fined that they find out what they determined to be compliance, wasn’t full compliance in the eyes of the law. The following notions […]