The following article by Jason Stoogenke appeared on wsoctv.com

Both Carolinas have unclaimed money sitting around, maybe with your name on it.

North Carolina has approximately $650 million. South Carolina has about $550 million.  So, between the two, there is more than $1 billion in unclaimed cash for the taking.

There’s no timeframe people must claim by, and if the person is dead, his or her heirs get the cash. That happens a fair amount and it can be a life-changing shock.

Action 9 investigator Jason Stoogenke asked N.C. Treasurer Dale Folwell how there could be so many people with so much money and not know about it.

“It’s actually fairly easy, especially if it relates to a grandparent or somebody who put money aside for you in a bank account that you never knew of and it had $30 in it or $50 and, you know, checks got lost in the mail,” Folwell said.

“Nobody believes us. Nobody thinks we have any money of theirs. I’ve been hung up on, sometimes three or four times, where I’m calling someone to try to reunite them with $700,000, $800,000,” S.C. Treasurer Curtis Loftis said, who happens to be the current president of the National Unclaimed Money Association.

Stoogenke asked both state treasurers’ offices for lists of everyone in the Charlotte viewing area who has unclaimed money. Mecklenburg County alone has 841 pages of names and dollar figures.

Bertha Dancy was on the list. She had $14,000 in unclaimed money. Two insurance companies owed her money.

Stoogenke went to tell her about it.  No one answered her door.  So Stoogenke asked neighbors for help.

One told Stoogenke that Dancy didn’t live there anymore, but that another neighbor had her son’s number. That neighbor called her son and put him on speakerphone so Stoogenke could talk to the man.

Her son recognized Stoogenke’s voice and so did a co-worker, Michelle Repeta, who jumped on the line.  But they thought maybe it was a scam.

“We watch you so much and you do bring out the scams,” Repeta said.

“I can come to you in person now and show this to you if you want,” Stoogenke replied.

Twenty minutes later, Stoogenke met Dancy’s son, Merv.

Merv Dancy said his mother had Alzheimer’s and dementia and she’s really had a hard time.

“She was a wanderer. She would get out of the house and we would find her in certain places and police having to pick her up,” Merv Dancy said.

He moved her into a nursing home, which is pricey, but the $14,000 will help.

“Heaven only knows this will come in handy to keep her safe and where she is,” Merv Dancy said.

“I am so happy for him and his mama.  I tell you that is the best news anybody can get,” Repeta said.

The following article by Rick Moriarty appeared in Syracuse.com on Dec. 01, 2017

Syracuse, N.Y. — More than 900 Syracuse Chiefs shareholders whose “abandoned” stock was given to the state will get it back in time to cash in – to the tune of $2.1 million – on the Minor League baseball team’s sale to the New York Mets.

The state Comptroller’s Office said 903 claims representing 1,745 shares in the team were received and verified by the comptroller’s Office of Unclaimed Funds by Thursday’s deadline.

Under an agreement between the Chiefs and the Comptroller’s Office, the shares will be reissued, making the owners eligible to receive approximately $1,208 a share when the sale to the Mets occurs later this month. In total, the shares being reissued are worth approximately $2.1 million to their owners.

Under the state’s Abandoned Property Law, the team in 2015 and 2016 deemed the shares held by approximately 2,400 of its 4,000 shareholders to be abandoned because the owners had died, or they had moved and did not let the team know their new address. The “abandoned” stock – more than 5,000 shares, or about a third of the team’s outstanding shares at the time – was given to the Office of Unclaimed Funds.

The state sold the stock back to the team for $19 a share, its appraised value in 2015 when the team was losing money.

Ordinarily, shareholders who came forward to reclaim their “abandoned” shares would have only received $19 from the state for each share and leaving them unable to benefit from the team’s sale to the Mets for $18 million. But a provision in the team’s stock buyback agreement with the state required the Chiefs to reissue the “abandoned” shares of those who filed claims to get their stock back.

Chiefs General Manager Jason Smorol said the team has been sending new stock certificates to verified claimants for the past few weeks.

The team has said it expects the sale to the Mets to occur no later than Dec. 15. Soon afterward, shareholders will receive a letter starting the team’s process of collecting their stock certificates and disbursing the proceeds of the sale, Smorol said.

He said the merger may be completed before the team’s Hot Stove Dinner Dec. 8 at the Oncenter. Former Mets stars Mookie Wilson, Edgardo Alfonzo, Tim Teufel and Ron Darling are scheduled to attend the event, which is expected to draw up to 800 people.

The team’s affiliation with the Washington Nationals is expected to continue through the 2018 baseball season, when its player development contract with the Nationals expires. Starting with the 2019 season, the Chiefs will become the Triple-A affiliate of the Mets.