Credit Karma Unclaimed Money Tells You If The Government Owes You

Unsplash/Sharon McCutcheon

Coming into money, however much it may be, is always a nice surprise. Whether it’s $10 or $1,000, it can help you get that much closer to meeting your financial goals. However, sometimes there’s money that you don’t even know about. What if you could just type your name somewhere and find money that’s yours that you didn’t even know about? Well, it’s possible.

Unclaimed Money

First and foremost, state governments sometimes hold onto money that should be in your hands. This happens when businesses owe you money but don’t know how to send it to you. Instead, they give it to the state.

Now, finding out about this money can be a detailed process. According to USA.gov, there’s no central place to search for this money, but there are four main ways you may be owed unclaimed money:

Bank failures and credit union closures
Unclaimed or undelivered tax refunds
Refund from an FHA-insured mortgage
Back wages, pension or life insurance funds

You can directly contact state governments and organizations like the IRS to file a claim, but that can also take up a lot of time.

If you think you’re owed money, start somewhere simpler.

Credit Karma

Unsplash/Corinne Kutz

According to Credit Karma, there’s more than $40 billion sitting in state governments. With the website’s Unclaimed Money and Unclaimed Property feature, you can now just simply search for your name across different states to see if you’re owed some of that money.

Credit Karma is free to use, so after you sign up and log in, you can use this feature to find your unclaimed money. It takes no more than a few minutes to search your name across different states where you’ve lived or worked. Once you know if you’re owed money or not, you can make the right moves to file a claim with the right office or organization in that state.

While you’re at it, check out your credit score and credit report on Credit Karma to ensure that all of your finances are in order. Staying on top of your money is super important, so take the time to do your research. It could really end up paying off.

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