Smart Money Team helps locate unclaimed property

Jessica Selby
Posted 6/19/14

When Cheryl Ursillo went to the Cranston Post Office to drop off her registered mail on Friday, she had no idea she was going to leave $100 richer.

She was one of more than a dozen local …

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Smart Money Team helps locate unclaimed property

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When Cheryl Ursillo went to the Cranston Post Office to drop off her registered mail on Friday, she had no idea she was going to leave $100 richer.

She was one of more than a dozen local residents to receive assistance from members of the Smart Money Team in the retrieval of their unclaimed property.

According to General Treasurer Gina Raimondo, there are currently 750,000 unclaimed properties in the state, valued at approximately $275 million. These monies come from various sources, including “forgotten” bank accounts, unclaimed stocks, dividends and life insurance claims.

The money is safely kept in a fund maintained by the state until the proper owner can be located to redeem their valuables.

The problem, according to Raimondo, is that many of these “rightful owners” cannot be found. The treasurer has been working for the past year to ramp up the efforts of the unclaimed property program in the state so that these monies can be properly distributed. Since her efforts began, more than $8 million has been returned to over 8,000 Rhode Islanders.

Raimondo has not been tackling this project alone. She created “The Smart Money Team,” which consists of six staff members. Recently, members of the team have been traveling the state visiting various sites to raise awareness about how the Treasury’s service can help Rhode Islanders find and save money.

“By bringing my office into the community, we are making an effort to serve all constituents in a convenient and transparent way,” Raimondo said.

On Friday, the Smart Money Team visited Cranston and more than two-dozen people stopped by the desk that was set up outside the Cranston Post Office near Garden City. Of those 25 or so people, “at least half” found that they had unclaimed property, said Ashley Gingerella O’Shea, director of communications for the general treasurer’s office.

Ursillo, a Cranston resident, was told by a member of the Smart Money team that her mother, Grace Ursillo, had unclaimed property. Ursillo said her mother had passed away and left her as the beneficiary to her estates. Since all of her mother’s belongings were in a trust, she was never made aware of any individual items and was “surprised” to learn of the unclaimed property owed to her.

“You know it was raining so hard out [on Friday] I wasn’t even going to come in, but I told myself to just suck it up and go and now I am so glad that I did,” Ursillo said.

Joyce Woll, another Cranston resident, also popped into the post office for a quick visit on Friday and decided to see if she had any unclaimed property owed to her. In the quick few seconds it took the team to search, Woll discovered that she did not have any monies owed to her – but her daughter, Renee Stanely, did.

After searching the designated and safe site, Heather Hudson, the Treasury’s director of financial empowerment, was able to tell Woll that her daughter had under $100 in unclaimed property that she would be able to obtain once she followed the proper procedure.

According to O’Shea, identifying unclaimed property is a “very simple” process and there are no fees involved. People can contact the state’s Unclaimed Property Division by phone or mail to request assistance in the search, or people can do it themselves online.  

If a staff person from the division performs a search for someone, and their name is found on the list, they would be mailed all of the necessary forms. At the event at the Post Office on Friday, unclaimed property owners were simply given a card with the property ID number on it and told to either call the Treasury office or to visit the website www.treasury.ri.gov/up.

If anyone is interested in learning if they have any unclaimed property, they can check for themselves at www.treasury.ri.gov. If anyone would like to request a Smart Money stop from the Smart Money team at their event or location, they can visit www.treasury.ri.gov/SmartMoney.

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