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Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Unclaimed Money

Unclaimed Money

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There are $16 billion worth of U.S. savings bonds that have already reached their maximum value but haven't been claimed.
You may wonder how somebody could lose track of an investment like this. The thing is, savings bonds take 20 to 40 years to mature, so people sometimes just forget about them.
But it's worth checking, because the average successful search turns up bonds worth about $1,000.
Jerry Williams of Pennsylvania remembers seeing patriotic promotional ads as a girl. So when she became a young working woman, she started buying savings bonds.
It was like an old-fashioned 401k.
"It's just been a blessing in our lives," Williams said.
When Williams saw a "Good Morning America" link about unclaimed savings bonds, she didn't think she'd find any because she had always kept hers in a safe and thought she'd cashed them all in.
PHOTO: Savings bonds are shown in this file photo.
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"I thought, 'oh well, I'll just do it anyway.' Bang -- there it was. And it was a thrill," she told "GMA."
"Count me in" is what Lorraine Silva and 70 others said when the Treasury Department was looking for volunteers to help reunite citizens with their savings bonds.
"It's very rewarding to feel that you've done something to make somebody happy and to perhaps change their life in some way," Silva said.
In some cases, bonds are so old that workers have to search microfilm archives for documentation.
The government's savings bond push was such a success that it takes a million microfilm reels in a room the length of a football field to hold all of the records.
Sure enough, some of those records were Williams'.
When Silva called with the good news, Williams was stunned. She had invested $50 and figured she'd get a hundred back, but got $521 instead -- 10 times her original investment.
"I thought, I'm just going to plant flowers," she said. "$500 worth. $500 worth of flowers. I'm just planting them."
That would make a beautiful ending to the story, but there's more. I suggested Williams search for savings bonds in her husband's name.
She found some.
And then, while "GMA" was at Williams' house, she found still more unredeemed savings bonds for her daughter, Becky Maholic.
Maholic now continues the tradition, buying savings bonds for her son.
"It'll be exciting to see if my son ever has the same excitement. Lost money that's found," Maholic said.
In the end, the Williams family received checks for a total of $924.
If you're now inspired to check for savings bonds in your family's name, it's easy. And it's worth checking back often because the government adds another half million bonds to the database every month as they mature.
So what's the largest dollar amount of savings bonds owed to any one person?
Somebody out there is the lucky owner of 13,000 savings bonds worth a total of $2.5 million.
The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities

The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities

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Michael Jackson never graced Forbes' annual Celebrity 100 list during his life. In death, the King of Pop earned more in the past year than any star on that list, apart from Oprah Winfrey.
Jackson not only took the No.1 spot on our 10th annual ranking of the Top-Earning Dead Celebrities, with gross earnings of $275 million, he out-earned the other 12 deceased stars on the list combined. Still more impressive: His estate's 12-month haul was greater than the pooled earnings of this year's two biggest living acts, U2 and AC/DC. Jackson's posthumous earnings come from his stake in the lucrative Sony/ATV catalog, the hit Sony film This Is It and renewed fan interest in music, videos and all things Michael Jackson.
"The death of Michael Jackson really put a focus on--crassly, quite frankly--what someone's worth when they're deceased," says David Reeder, vice president of Corbis' GreenLight, which manages the personality rights for Albert Einstein and Steve McQueen, among other dead celebrities. "In a more positive way, it exposed consumers to this idea that there actually is a market for, and an enduring legacy for, these people."
VIDEO: Lisa Marie Presley on the reasons why her marriage to Michael Jackson ended.
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To place on this year's list, a deceased celebrity needed to earn at least $5 million between Oct. 1, 2009, and Oct. 1, 2010. For the most part, earnings come from things like music royalties (John Lennon), book sales (Dr. Seuss) or the licensing of one's image and likeness (McQueen). To compile the list, we spoke to agents, lawyers and other sources to estimate a star's gross earnings (before taxes, management fees and other costs).
Coming in at No. 2 is Elvis Presley. The King of Rock n' Roll's estate pulled down $60 million in the 12-month period, thanks to Graceland admissions and a heavily hyped Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas. The estate's portfolio of more than 200 licensing and merchandise deals got a nice boost from the late star's 75th birthday celebration as well.
Stieg Larsson, author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, debuts on this year's list at No. 6 with $18 million in earnings. The Swedish writer died in 2004 at the age of 50, before any of the books in his Millennium Trilogy were published. They have since sold 40 million copies, been translated into 44 languages and spawned three hit Swedish movies.
No surprise, Hollywood has come calling. A U.S. version of the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is scheduled to hit theaters next December. The film will be directed by The Social Network's David Fincher and star Daniel Craig as hero Mikael Blomkvist. A cut of the money from the American movies (and a reported fourth book) will go to Larsson's estate, which is being fought over by Larsson's longtime girlfriend and his brother and father.
Also new to the list is New York Yankees icon George Steinbrenner, who ranks ninth with earnings of $8 million. The legendary owner passed away this summer at the age of 80, but his estate continues to cash in on the team's success. The Yankees have a lucrative stake in the YES regional sports network, and Steinbrenner's estate receives a cut of sales from the team's merchandise.

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