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Who doesn’t like free cash?  It is nice to find unexpected money that you can claim to your name.   But is there really such a thing as free cash?  You would be surprised by the number of unclaimed cash that is out there.  Just to give you an example, for the tax year 1996 alone the IRS says it has $110 million in refund checks for about 115,000 taxpayers.  In this article we will provide you with 4 sources of potential of cash that you may be able to claim.

Unclaimed Property

There is about $32.8 billion in unclaimed property sitting in state treasuries, including stocks, uncashed dividends, forgotten bank accounts, lawsuit settlements and undelivered refunds.

The great news is that there is a free and easy way to find out of any of this money belongs to you.  The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators run a cool site where you can run a search based on your name and state of residency.  You can access the site at www.missingmoney.com.

The search will list potential unclaimed money that may belong to you and the potential amount.  When you click on an item, the site will provide you with more detail regarding the unclaimed property.  Then, based on the following criteria you may be eligible to claim the property:

• Is this your name?
• Do you live or have you lived at the address listed if shown?
• Do you or have you lived in the state holding the property?
• Have you conducted business with the company listed in the "Reported By" column?

Tax Refunds

As discussed in the beginning, the IRS has a significant amount of unclaimed tax refunds sitting is its banks.  Most of these refunds are checks that were returned because the taxpayer moved and did not inform the IRS of the new address.  So how do you find out if you have some unclaimed refunds with the IRS?  It is quite simple:

If you think you have a tax refund that was not delivered to you, go to www.irs.gov and click on the link “Where’s My Refund?”  You will have to enter your social security number, filing status and refund amount.

You can also use the search tool provided by the National Taxpayer Union for unclaimed refunds:

http://www.ntu.org/main/components/current_irs/

Just enter your last name and your state and the site will tell you if you have any unclaimed refunds since 2002.

Currency Conversion Refund

If you travelled overseas in the last 10 years and used a credit card you are eligible for a refund.  Depending on how much travel you did, you may be eligible for anywhere from $25 all the way up to 3% of your transactions, depending on whether you take the easy rebate; estimate how many days you spent abroad and apply a formula based on typical spending patterns; or provide a detailed estimate of how much you spent.

This refund is the result of a $336 million settlement for a class-action lawsuit against the major credit card issuers who failed to disclose currency conversion fees.

You have until May 30, 2008 to file your claim.  You can make your claim by mail, by sending your information to:

U.S. District Court Settlement Administrator

P.O. Box 290

Philadelphia, PA 19105-0290

Or you can file online through the site www.ccfsettlement.com.  This assures that the information you are sending is encrypted for security purposes.

How to Find Unclaimed Money

The web site How to Find Unclaimed Money specializes in helping people find unclaimed money and can help you identify potential money that you can claim for yourself in a few minutes.

Who said there is no such thing as free money?  We just showed you 4 easy ways to potentially grab some additional cash with minimum effort.

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