Crimes of Persuasion

Schemes, scams, frauds.



Fraudulent Offers To Locate Unclaimed Funds

You receive the following letter.


Dear Sir/ Madam,

You are owed money!

Nine out of ten people over the age of 25 are owed money they didn't know they had, and you are one of them!

There is over 400 billion dollars in unclaimed money in North America, 400 billion! This money belongs to you, and millions of others.

You may have seen or heard about unclaimed funds on a talk show or news program. Oprah Winfrey recently devoted an entire program to unclaimed funds. Her purpose was to alert the public that every individual should check to see if they are owed money, since 90% of adults have abandoned assets.

Most people don't think they've ever lost money, but how do they really know unless they check?

Abandoned money is money you don't know about, and that is precisely why you must check! The average amount of money owed to an individual is approximately $2,200.00. FIND OUT ABOUT YOUR MONEY TODAY!

We help individuals across North America discover these abandoned funds. To initiate a search for your money, please call our international information hotline at 1-809-414-2458 now. We charge you no fees for a search. If funds are found in your name, you can then choose to recover the money yourself or let us help recover the money for you. We only charge a 15% fee of the amount found after the money has been recovered. There are no up-front costs to you.

That's all there is to it. We want to build a relationship with you to help recover all your sources of abandoned money. Let us go to work for you. If you are not satisfied with our assistance, you are under no obligation whatsoever; we cannot proceed without your consent. You have a 90% chance of being owed money, so take that first simple step and inquire about the money waiting for you! We are available to take your calls 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Remember, nine out of ten people are owed money! CALL 1-809-414-2458 NOW!

Yours truly,

A company which will charge you a hefty per- minute- fee just for calling this international long distance number. If you get lucky they might just locate the $3.73 you left in your paper route account.


Was wondering if you'd heard anything bad, good or otherwise about FoundMoney.com. You enter your name in a search engine and a list of possible sources of unclaimed money pops up.

Of course, you have to enroll in their program ($20 and up) to find out if any of the items on the list are something you're actually entitled to. They guarantee that if anything on the list is yours they will get the money back to you or else they will refund your membership though it does not appear you're entitled to any such refund if nothing on the list is actually something you're entitled to. What do you think?

Mike Wilcox 06/19/02

Reply: While not an outright scam it is one of those services you can easily get for free. They just source out the free bank and government services and charge you for the result. If you ask your bank which agency ( usually the central bank or treasury department ) handles unclaimed deposits you can go to their website and search yourself.

Let me know if you need help spending your found millions.

Les


Government linked search services for unclaimed funds and property are available for free.

Free Unclaimed Money Search for Australia

www.unclaimed.org - U.S. - links to all states

www.missingmoney.com - U.S. - links to all states

Found money search through North Carolina Treasurer - North Carolina

Scammy How-to Services Offerings