Beware:  Consumers warned about fraudulent Unclaimed Property letters and emails

August 4, 2016

You've seen those announcements that the state is holding unclaimed property, waiting for its rightful owners to file appropriate paperwork and claim their property.  Idaho and other states operate legitimate programs to help identify and return to its citizens property (often money) that has been unclaimed and is being held in trust by the state. Now a warning is being issued to watch out for letters and emails sent out fraudulently by scammers intent on deceiving people into thinking they have valuable unclaimied property coming from the state.  The real goal of these scammers:  to get you to hand money or your personal information over to them. As the official representative of the state unclaimed property programs, the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA) is warning consumers to be on their guard against fraudulent letters and emails alleging that there is an unclaimed sweepstakes listing that must be liquidated. NAUPA is warning consumers to be on guard against fraudulent letters arriving via the U.S. Mail and in consumers' email inboxes alleging that they have unclaimed property. This particularly deceptive letter is on fake NAUPA letterhead and requests money be sent to claim the property. “Not to be confusing, but Idaho Unclaimed Property is currently contacting some rightful owners with a letter as part of an outreach campaign and those letters are legitimate,” said Idaho State Treasurer Ron Crane. “The association (NAUPA) does not notify owners of forgotten or missing funds and never has.” If a citizen receives a letter from Idaho Unclaimed Property it will be on the Unclaimed Property letterhead. However, if a person is ever in doubt of a letter’s legitimacy, there is a phone number at the bottom of the letter along with the claim agent’s name. Many times the intent of this type of fraudulent letter is to entice people to respond with personal information for the purpose of stealing their identity, or the victim will be asked to send a fee so that the claim can be processed. NAUPA encourages individuals to report any suspicious unclaimed property communication to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) online at www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx. ] The National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators is a non-profit organization affiliated with the National Association of State Treasurers.