Digital Gold and Border Crossings

By Don Rittner

My friend Guy Spataford sent me email recently and wrote that the Hearst Corporation owed me money and pointed to a Web site to prove it. Sure enough, he was right. It's also true that thousands of people in New York State unknowingly have money due them. Thanks to the Internet, there is an easy way to find out if there is any money waiting for YOU.

Looking for money that's due you could not be easier. Just type in your name and/or city and let the search engine look for you. If it finds a match, it lists the company or person who owes you, and gives you a form that you fill in and print. Have a notary sign it and mail it in.

If you are not on the Net, there are places out there that will do this for you but they cannot charge you more than 15% of what is owed. Here is a tip. If you have moved a lot over the years, only use your name not the city in the search engine. Also if you type in just your last name, you may find money owed to your relatives (and you might even find relatives you didn't know you had).

If the money owed you was in an interest bearing account, the State pays the interest, for a period of five years from the date they receive it. However, the interest rate may not be the same and is set by the New York State Department of Tax & Finance, which is updated quarterly.

Also on the Web site is a good tutorial on how to avoid having your money turned over to the State and how to get it back if it is abandoned.

By the way, after searching for everyone I know, I found two companies owe my wife stock dividends. So between the two of us, three checks should be in the mail soon. I also found that a good friend of mine is owed money from a bank in a city he worked in years ago!

This is a great service and Mr. McCall should be commended for putting it on the Net.

Look for your pot of gold at:

Office of Unclaimed Funds

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/ouf/

Reaction To My NetCam Column

I received a great email from Tuulia Fuller, a local substitute teacher, regarding my NetCam column. She likes to collect NetCam URL's but recently the Net has brought her closer to her family.

She has been able to "see" her sisters for the first time since 1992. They live in Tampere, Finland. Last May she talked them into posing at a certain time in the vicinity of the Tampere netcam located in the city, and snapped a few pictures.

A few weeks ago Tampere added two more cameras. One of them is located inside their City Hall, facing busy traffic on the main street. She got her sisters to pose and they have agreed to do it again soon.

In June she was able to get a distant glimpse of her oldest son and his wife in Alaska, taking a lunchtime stroll on an Anchorage street.

As she explained to me, with so much distance between her and relatives, watching her sisters or son through the NetCam is almost like looking out the window and seeing them there, waving at her, and she waves back.

Her childhood friend (also from Finland) living in Canada and she have taken up watching the border crossing between Finland and Russia at Vaalimaa (http://www.tieh.fi/evideo.htm), if for no other reason, to see what the weather is like. Last month the snowfall was so heavy that her friend got all worried about the two feet of snow on the border shack roof.

Tuulia wrote to the road commissioner's email address. Not only did she receive a friendly reply, but the next morning the roof had been cleared of snow. In the snow near the border shack someone had scribbled the message: HI!

How's that for fostering international relations!

©1999 Don Rittner