In New York alone, there's $11-billion out there in what's called unclaimed funds.
SCROLL DOWN FOR LINKS TO SEE IF YOU HAVE UNCLAIMED MONEY
So many people have unclaimed funds, the very first person we ran into at Grand Central had 4 accounts in New York. All her money is waiting to be claimed.
We've shown you how to check before - go to your state's unclaimed fund website, type in your just your last name for the most results, and start searching.
The New York State Comptroller's Office helped us with those surprises and let us in on their biggest mystery account. Someone out there has $1.7 million unclaimed.
"One would think that someone, even a wealthy person, would not want to misplace that amount of money," Tom Dinapoli, the New York State Comptroller, said.
Dinapoli's office isn't in the detective business. With 26 million people on the database, it can't go searching for this person. Privacy laws also prohibit the public release of the mystery person's name. They can't even say whether the person is alive or dead, or what type of investment it is.
What the comptroller could tell us led us to our first clue: Just how long has all that money gone unclaimed?
Clue number one is 2004. Just six years ago the money was turned over to the state because whoever held the money could not locate the person.
The next hint is where this person lived at the time the money went unclaimed. It wasn't in Queens. It wasn't Brooklyn, Staten Island or the Bronx. The last known address the person had was somewhere in Manhattan.
That's a Big Apple to search for one individual.
We were able to get one more clue from the comptroller. The money's not a compilation of accounts. The entire $1.7 million was left in a single account.
It's like the lottery, you never know. Except unlike the lottery, you won't pay taxes and you don't have to pay to play.
THE LINKS:
DID YOU FIND UNCLAIMED MONEY? TELL 7 ON YOUR SIDE BY CLICKING HERE
