Last summer I started taking some courses to get a California brokerage license and in conjunction with that I had a course in tax deed sales. In that class I learned a little known fact about tax deed sales. When a person doesn't pay their property taxes it gets sold at auction for the taxes owed. Anything above and beyond the opening bid is called the overbid and is due back to the delinquent owner. They probably don't know this and if they don't claim it after 1 year (in CA, other places it's as much as two years) then the money goes into the general fund of the county. The county isn't in a very big hurry to let the owners know this, but they are required, by law, to send a notice to the last known address. Which is usually the property that they just lost. Nice, huh?
Also, every state has a database of unclaimed funds for people who moved or died or for whatever reason the company can't return the money to the people. They are also required, by law, to turn those funds over to the state. The state collects interest on the money and they aren't in any big hurry either to help people find their money. California is better than most. They put the names and amounts on their online database.
So I signed up for a people finding service at $130 a month that required a business license and a background check. At first I started looking up and calling people with amounts over $100 just to let them know that the money was there for them to claim. There were a few times when I was just trying to get in touch with the person and the intermediary thought I was trying to pull a scam. Some random stranger calls with free money? Never happens!
Most people to whom the money was due were really friendly and thanked me. It felt good, and I liked getting the practice of talking to people. Besides, sorting through the thousands of names looking for a big amount was paramount to looking for a needle in a haystack.
I was only going to charge 10% for helping people find lost funds. One guy I called was being charged 30% to recover the overbid on a CA property he lost while living in Wyoming. CRAZY!
I started looking through unclaimed funds in last names that I was familiar with. Family names, last names of people in the ward. I was looking through all the Barlow's when I came across a Bertha Barlow who had quite a few on the page that weren't very much but one was $700 something . When I looked her up, the address returned a PO box was the only known address and she died in 1987. Too bad Bertha, on to the next. Well, the next page was filled with Bertha Barlow stuff. And they seemed to get bigger. The next page was also dedicated to her. On and on this went. I found 190 different claims totaling $394,905.86 in cash and $1,534,787 (approx) in stocks. OH. MY. GOSH.
Because the amount in question was so large I made a much more valiant effort to figure out who the heirs might be. My best lead was a few of the accounts had a Patricia Griffin associated with them. I spent about two months working on the accounts. I searched death records, the social security index, birth records. I went after the maiden name to see if I could identify the next of kin. I called a guy out in Kentucky who had a remarkable number of matching pieces of information, but he said he had no idea who Bertha was.
So I searched on the name Patricia Griffin. I found several and looked into each to see if I could find any connection. Low and behold I found a Patricia Griffin at the same address with a Bertha S. Barlow. The Bertha I was looking for had a different middle initial, but the two names Patricia and Bertha together was too much of a coincidence to be wrong.
Before I attempted to contact them I tried working some of the smaller accounts. I noticed that people's friendliness entirely disappeared as soon as I expected something from them. One guy in OH thought I was running a scam. He returned the contract to me, but when I sent him the claim forms that wanted a SS# to verify his identity, I didn't hear from him again. Another guy, who's parents estate it was, knew about the money but hadn't done anything to claim it. He asked for a contract, but then never returned it. Not so much success. The overbid refunds, I learned, is EXTREMELY competitive and the SECOND the auction is over the owners were getting called. While the unclaimed funds seemed like an easier option, turning out to be extremely time consuming. I was spending far too much time away from my kids.
I decided to hang it up, so I canceled the people finding service. However, before totally walking away I wanted to follow through on the Bertha Barlow estate. The big numbers made me nervous, but I figured that what I could do was fly down and meet them in person once making initial contact so that I could get all the paperwork signed, notarized and the documents together. I would have them sign the contract with me and then show them the assets online. It seemed like a good plan.
I called the number I had, but it just rang and rang. So I started calling the other numbers to see if I could reach a live person. Many of them were disconnected. Finally one of them answered and was a lady who had lived with one of Patricia's daughters. She had her number, but had to look it up. She said she would get back to me when she found it. A couple of days later I got a call from Kathleen Griffin (aka Griffin Irving). She changed her first name to her maiden name. Whatever. She was living in Hawaii and said in her message that Patricia was Bertha's daughter. She said that her mother turns the answering machine off when they leave town, but didn't leave the number for her mom. At the time I didn't realize that I already had Patricia's number.
When I called Griffin back she said it sounded like a scam (gee, haven't heard that one before). I tried to be as friendly as possible. She gave me her mother's number, but then kept me on the phone even though I tried to get off several times. She kept asking questions and ME being friendly and probably too honest and forthcoming I said something about sorting through the database. She asked if it was a public database. At that point I knew I was done.
That night I couldn't sleep. I kept replaying the conversation over and over knowing that I had said too much. It would be a race who could get a hold of her mother first. Since she was in Hawaii, I managed to call Patricia first, but she had just gotten back from a 22 hour drive the night before and was too tired to talk. She took my number and said she would call back.
That was on Tuesday, July 20th. On Thursday morning I called and left a message. On Friday afternoon I called and she answered. She was very short with me and said that she didn't have time to talk that she was busy working on the computer. I knew at that point that she was at that very moment looking up all the assets it had taken me so long to put together. I asked her if she had talked to her daughter and she got mad and said, "She's got nothing to do with this!"I felt like I should wait until Wednesday (July 28th) to call again. When I did, her phone was off and I knew she was out of town again. I didn't know it then, but she was up in Sacramento processing all of the claims. The next week Mikey was in town and we were all busy spending time with him and enjoying his company.
The following Sunday, August 8th, I felt like I should check the claims online. When I looked them up all but a handful were gone. My heart sunk. I called her right then. She pretended not to know who I was. She was very short with me, but in a good mood because she knew that I couldn't do anything about the claims she had already turned in. She accused me of being reproachful with her when I called that last Friday and besides she ALREADY knew about the money. Funny, she had no idea when I first called. I wonder if she wasn't feeling guilty because she knew she was screwing me. I told her I found it very unusual that she had waited 23 years to process the claims if she already knew about them. Then she came back with, "Well, we'd been contacted by other people." Ya right. That's why as soon as I call everybody makes last minute trips to Sacramento. It bothers me that she's lying about my having to do anything with her getting this inheritance. It bothers me that I worked harder than I would have otherwise in the hopes of being compensated only to have them stab me in the back. I was trying so hard to convince them that I wasn't a scam, that I didn't realize that they scammed me. Ten percent for all my effort is such a small amount considering the almost two million they wouldn't have even known about.
What's ironic is that after talking to Griffin/Kathleen (horrible, horrible person) I went looking in a few other places and found several hundred thousand more NOT being held by the SCO. I didn't mention the money to the daughter because I hadn't found it yet. They would have ended up with more money even with my10% consideration by honestly working with me rather than stabbing me in the back. I've kept checking back with the other places with no changes. I tried to tell Mrs. Griffin that she hadn't found all of it, but she couldn't be convinced otherwise.
The first night I had fantasies reflecting my own "horrible" coming out. I'm working really hard to forgive them. For MY sake and sanity, NOT theirs. However, I'm hoping REALLY hard that Karma rewards their behavior.
Updated 9/9/2012
Seeing as how I was still bothered by this too many months later I decided to call Patricia and tell her about the approximately $200,000 that was being held in Florida. I did it for my sake not hers. As a token that I forgive her for being dishonest with me. Bless them that curse you. Do good to them that spitefully use you and persecute you. I told her about all the different accounts in her name, her mother's name, her father's name. There you go. You're welcome. Have a nice day.
