Unclaimed property in rural Georgia? Not anymore.
A short time back we asked the question “SD State Treasurer Sattgast must have asked SOS Gant to design a websiteâ€?  Go back and read it. We now ask the question again in light of the November, 2012 election results where the Governor lost his pet projects to the people’s revolt and are now getting SB 235. For those who do not follow the actions of our esteemed elective officials playing government in Pierre for their enjoyment (and potential profits?) we bring it up again.
SB 235 started out life as an empty piece of legislation. A quirk our legislature has, is the ability to change empty bills to do whatever it so chooses. This year’s session has created a monster rollup bill to hide a great deal of ugliness covered by pretty gift wrapping with the passage of SB 235. Everything we the voters of South Dakota did not like about the Governor’s special projects fund and its untraceable / unregulated gifts, are now going to be rolled into this law. There are some nice things the ALEC funded pushers of this law have allowed to happen to gain supporters but digging deeper into their motives shows the depths of the subterfuge. A massive amount of new money is falling into the hands of South Dakota politicians to divide up. To divide up this massive amount of new money, they have sucked in a bunch of naïve Democrats and tea partiers to block future organized efforts to rein it in. How can you have a petition effort to stop something you are part of? Shame on you Bernie and Jason…
How does this apply to Sattgast, Gant and the unclaimed property fund? Well, according to reports, big USA banks are rechartering their national banking operations to operate under the rules and laws of the State of South Dakota. Why is this important? A former SD State Treasurer fought to guarantee the owners of misplaced or unclaimed property the ability to get it returned to them. SD Treasurer Butler fought Wild Bill Janklow and his legislators all the way to the Supreme Court on our behalf before losing. Butler became a hated man in Pierre and Citibank, probably still is. Janklow brought Citibank to South Dakota and he continued to help them, by losing track of the owners of “property†so it could be split without audit. South Dakota gained a bit and Citibank gained a bunch.  We had to believe the banks without any audit. Right…
Now we fast forward a few decades to this year’s session. The Mitchell Daily Republic has an excellent discussion of SB 235.
This surge was fueled when several major banking corporations, such as Citi and Wells Fargo, consolidated their charters in South Dakota for tax reasons. That means money left behind in accounts throughout the nation will become unclaimed property here.
The part they do not tell you is how the state gets to keep all these funds. Remember the state’s unclaimed property website? It has been made impossible to use. We had wondered why it was designed so badly. Now we know. People looking for their property will never find it. Now add millions of unclaimed accounts or property to this fund having originated in other states or countries. If you did not have a chance before, guess what opportunity you have now? Now think of the millions of account holders from around the world who will never see their investments.
So, to steal money from unsuspecting depositors, insurance policies, safety deposit box holders and more, South Dakota has designed a website to make sure the scam works.
Wow… that is fairly cynical. I find it interesting that you feel the state is somehow trying to make it difficult for people to claim lost property yet I have seen notices talking about unclaimed funds in my electric (co-op) bill and in a mailing from the city. The website is also linked to several other websites that perform nationwide searches… meaning someone doesn’t need to know their lost money is sitting in South Dakota.
For example – visit http://www.unclaimed.org or http://www.missingmoney.com. A search should take you all of about 10 seconds.
Also last weekend during the Home Show there was a booth setup prominently displayed advertising that this lost property exists – and it allowed people to search for their names on the spot to determine if they had anything floating out there. They even had two helpful employees manning the booth and answering questions.
Sure didn’t appear they were trying to hide anything to me.
Most of this money comes from things like member co-operative rebates and shares, or utility rebates and deposits that belong to people who moved without giving forwarding addresses. There are also a few insurance settlements or funds tied to class-action cases, some property tax refunds, some money that was intended for someone who has passed away and there was no way to determine who the rightful heirs were, and there are even the proceeds from the auction of unclaimed physical property such as abandoned vehicles or the contents of safety deposit boxes.
Managing that department and trying to verify who gets what is a very time consuming process, and it isn’t cheap. Plus it isn’t like if someone doesn’t claim their funds for 90 days it automatically goes to the state. That process takes years and years – so can you think of a better option?
Honestly if someone has unclaimed property it is easy for them to find it. The problem is nobody thinks it can happen to them, so they don’t bother to look. Either way, the state isn’t getting rich over this.
How hard do you think the state website is by the way? I entered my last name, clicked submit and BAM – I had a hit for a distant relative. Is that too difficult for the average person? What level of spoon feeding is acceptable for you if you honestly think this website is unusable?
As far as the claim of millions of accounts all somehow ending up in the state coffers – please by all means show us the numbers. That seems like a massive exaggeration and I sincerely doubt it has any connection to reality.
You never did hear about Butler, Janklow, and Citibank last year during Stormland’s weeklong “cult of personality” rant did you?
What a bunch of BS Craig. All you have to do is be involved with a the big bank here in South Dakota to see the scam working in real life.
Butler knew too much and he is out of politics in South Dakota. In his job as trustee of the funds, he demanded audits of the unclaimed funds held by the banks.
Citibank officials know South Dakota is a crooked state to do business in, so of course, “lets do more business there”. Citibank and Wells Fargo know their unclaimed property funds will never be audited. They turn over a minimum amount of funds to make it look good and pretend all is right with the world.
Now SB 235 comes along with legislators looking for pork to send home to their constituencies. Lets payoff a bunch of special interests groups with a special funding program in South Dakota to make the scam complete with cover.
Get a grip, South Dakota’s corruption is so institutionalized it is accepted as just another day at the office.
The name of Bill Janklow was in the most recent Argus Leader published list of unclaimed property. I hope someone notices.
Website impossible to use. I guess, if you can’t read. All unclaimed property is listed on a state website AND it’s regularly printed in papers AND a booth is set up at every fair in the state. My 78 year old grandfather claimed insurance premiums owed to him by using the process. Ya…. it’s way too complicated.
ANOTHER BS flag on the field.
Apparently this group of super database managers know how to run queries, against data that should be there but isn’t, so they can get their property back from the businesses who don’t want to give it up.
LJL your grandfather was lucky. There are many people and businesses who will never get the chance to find their lost property. How do you know he got all of his lost property?
Depressing. Our state is this corrupt? We must protect ourselves. Perhaps banking out of state or overseas.
E-Trade has a checkbook account. Reserves can go into funds or stocks. I’ve done well with a dividend growth fund. Look for neighboring state banks without branches in SD. These cases are not suceptable to accounts being frozen. Our state has become known for adverse banking practices. Protect yourself.
“Citibank and Wells Fargo know their unclaimed property funds will never be audited. They turn over a minimum amount of funds to make it look good and pretend all is right with the world.”
This is a serious accusation therefore I’m sure you have more than sufficient evidence to support it right? (I noticed you quickly glossed over where I asked for numbers to support the accusation of “millions of unclaimed accounts”).
I hate to break it to you, but there are a lot of flaws in your thought process. Number one, the reason the banks are chartered in South Dakota is because of the lack of usury laws and the fact that SD doesn’t collect a state business income tax. It has nothing to do with collecting unclaimed property.
Second, even some of the banks that have their credit card operations here are still federally chartered with individual state charters. Either way they are still required to follow state law surrounding unclaimed property in the state where the property originates.
How do I know this? Well it just so happens that I know a man who works for Wells and who deals with safety deposit boxes. When someone fails to pay their rent, and they are unable to be reached via mail or phone, he arranges for the box to be drilled by an outside vendor (Diebold in most cases). This process doesn’t even start until something like six months after the last payment. Then there is a series of checks and balances and at least two or three people who inventory the contents. What happens next depends upon state law, but in many cases the contents are sent to auction and then the bank is able to collect any back rent plus the cost of drilling the box. That’s it – they don’t get to keep the money and it is turned over to whatever state they are located in.
In most cases there isn’t anything of value, and contrary to what movies have taught us, people do not keep massive amounts of cash or jewelry in their boxes – or if they do, they aren’t the ones not paying their rent.
On top of this, any customer funds or property has to be meticulously tracked and can very well be audited at any given point. Federal regulators and state agencies have the right to audit these banks – and if there were really millions being pilfered it would be rather difficult to hide.
So basically when you accuse banks of not turning in lost property, you are suggesting there are dozens if not hundreds upon hundreds of individuals who are all in on this little shell game but who have never spoke up and bothered to mention it. You are suggesting this is some well organized ploy to rob people of their rightful property by hiding it and/or transferring it to another state. You are also suggesting that nobody has ever had their lost property stolen from them and bothered to speak up and alert the media and somehow these big, evil banks have been able to keep this little gravy train going for years with nobody noticing.
Yet you have zero evidence to support any of these accusations, and they don’t even hold up to common sense. What it seems you do actually have is the makings of a very intricate conspiracy theory where hundreds of banks and thousands of employees across the nation are working under the cover of darkness to rob grandma of her $43.28 that was refunded to her checking account after she had closed it.
Yea that makes perfect sense.
I’m sorry you are so cynical that you actually believe some of the conspiracy theories floating in your head. This would be incredibly sad if it wasn’t so damn entertaining.
Craig, the reason for the Butler lawsuit years ago was to establish the audit process. Having worked in the research side of the banking industry I know of what I speak. If you knew how badly banking software was written, you would not use a bank. You would realize your grandfather’s mattress might have more security.
Software inside of the banking industry is made to make sure the bank does not lose their share. Your share is up to you. I have been involved with banking software for a long time, it is sad we have to rely on it for our daily lives.
So make yourself comfortable with your outside the industry knowledge. Butler was right, there must be an outside audit function to verify. The only thing Ronnie Reagan said right was “trust but verify”.
It must be fun to make massive assumptions about people “outside the industry”. The irony is astounding.
This entire post is one example of why blogs and personal websites will never supplant traditional media. A legitimate news organization (yes I realize they are rare these days) waits until they have the evidence before producing a story. It seems in the blog world – you get to make accusations first and the burden of proof is non-existent.
Talk to me when you have information to support these “millions” of accounts and the massive corruption that hides all of these funds within the banks and/or the state coffers. For a guy with such inside knowledge it shouldn’t be too difficult to produce.
If I could audit the banks like Butler tried we could know for sure.
Craig – “One has the right to their own opinion, but not their own facts.” That said, a blog such as this is an opinion page in a newspaper which invites discussion, while the actual paper is merely (hopefully) the reporter of fact to which opinions thence flourishes from.
Any one who recalls the Butler/Janklow/Citibank days knows that the aforementioned discussion about South Dakota politicians and banks located in South Dakota, and the alleged comments, does fit within the legitimate opinion-making process from once reported facts.
I met that Corey Brown fellow and can tell you that he is a darn decent guy. Maybe I don’t agree with him but he ok.
People used to like Sarah Palin too.
GP – you shouldn’t need an audit if there are “millions of accounts” unclaimed… there should be a line of people who have legitimate complaints about their lost funds. There should be paper trails that result in missing money. There should be hundreds of whistleblower employees from every bank in the nation speaking out – because I’m sure you realize not every employee of a bank is a crook, and not every former member of a bank has an incentive to keep their mouth shut if they were aware of fraud on such a massive scale.
Meanwhile, the banks lose paperwork on a mortgage and it is front page news. They foreclose on a house for a 94 year old widow who claims she didn’t even have a mortgage and it is shown on NBC nightly news with Brian Williams… even though the widow signed up for a HELOC and just magically forgot about the $35,000 she forgot to pay back.
When banks screw up – 99 times out of 100 someone knows about it, and someone hears about it. We need to remember banks are the bad guy in our modern world – people love it when the banks look bad, and it is popular news fodder.
There are quite simply far too many players involved to keep it all a secret, and merely because one particular state agency isn’t allowed to audit federally chartered banks does not indicate there is a smoking gun. That is like suggesting because we don’t allow the city to audit the state sales tax records it must mean that the state is stealing millions. Hey – in the absence of fact you must rely upon assumption right?
The truth is, banks are continually examined by multiple financial regulators and auditors. The OCC digs into banks on a continual basis, you have the SEC paying visits, you have the FDIC who will often act on behalf of consumers, and now with the Dodd-Frank legislation there is the CFPB who is digging in to numerous consumer related issues ranging from fees charged to accounts, the ordering of transactions, loan terms, dischargability of debts, and much more. These federal agencies routinely audit practically every aspect of the banks and in some cases have found massive problems, but in other cases have drilled down far enough to find a handful of loans that were handled improperly.
So we are to believe with all of this oversight, the banks are still able to somehow hide “millions of accounts” that magically disappear and nobody is the wiser?
Sure thing.
What the Butler case set as law is the banks do not have to accountable for their actions if the action is brought in South Dakota.
When you work with banks who are audited you will see they are checked for many different things but unclaimed property is excluded. This is what Butler and Janklow and Citibank were fighting about. Janklow and Citibank fought to keep the secret.
Craig – The OCC, SEC, FDIC, and CFPB are Federal oversights. The topical issues here are State oversights, which are definitely lacking here.
Craig does not seem to know how the banking fraud systems work in this country and around the world. There is too much fraud involved in the mortgage industry starting with the changes the 1999 Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act brought on. Apparently institutionalized banking fraud is caused only by “uneducated poor” who snookered the naive over educated bankers.
Winston cites the agencies charged with auditing certain functions of banking. Unclaimed property is not a audited function in South Dakota. The regulators do not have a spot on their forms to document property from mislabeled accounts. I have seen this in my work during a 2 year project to document what became a 9 digit fraud scheme. Most banking software is so badly written, much can fall between the cracks. Unclaimed property is one of them.
“Craig – The OCC, SEC, FDIC, and CFPB are Federal oversights. The topical issues here are State oversights, which are definitely lacking here.”
I’ve yet to see a case where adding another layer of bureaucratic red tape was a good thing. If we have Federal oversight, why do we need state oversight (other than to add a few state employees)? Once we have state audits, then do we need county audits too? What about city audits?
I don’t know all the history of this Butler situation, but perhaps we should first ask ourselves why the Supreme Court ruled the other way. I do know states do get involved with lost property however – and I doubt it is based upon the honor system.
The amount of regulation placed upon our financial institutions is quite large – and only growing. That is a good thing, but a state like South Dakota doesn’t need to add redundancy – it is a costly burden and one which I’ve yet to be convinced is necessary. It is doubtful anything happens inside of a financial institution today that isn’t under the watchful eye of some government agency. If lost property concerns you so much, you should suggest the CFPB starts looking into it, but frankly I don’t believe our state is equipped to try and start auditing banks, and if they are even 5% as corrupt as some of you suggest you shouldn’t want them to try.
“Craig does not seem to know how the banking fraud systems work in this country and around the world.”
You’re probably right – the banks are pure evil and innocent people who sign up for mortgages without reading the terms are always the victims.
Are there bad people working in banks? Sure – but there are just as many bad people committing fraud against them, yet nobody seems to care about them. If you knew how many basis points were tied directly to fraud every time you swipe a debit card you would be appalled. In any case – let’s go ahead and assume I’m overly familiar with banking fraud from both sides, and the mere fact it is so often discovered is all the more reason to think these “millions of accounts” would easily be discovered if they actually existed.
Now if you would rather believe there is some massive conspiracy at play here by all means that is your right. I just feel that requires a certain amount of ignorance and a whole lot of cynicism.
“Craig – The OCC, SEC, FDIC, and CFPB are Federal oversights. The topical issues here are State oversights, which are definitely lacking here.â€
“I’ve yet to see a case where adding another layer of bureaucratic red tape was a good thing. If we have Federal oversight, why do we need state oversight (other than to add a few state employees)? Once we have state audits, then do we need county audits too? What about city audits?”
Well, maybe because the Feds do not have jurisdiction over State laws and regulations…..it is that simple!
The reason for the move to South Dakota is the lack of audits. Many other states are pressing the banks to properly return lost funds to the rightful owners. The Janklow administration pushed Butler case and decision to the conclusion he needed. Pierre is a small town with the ability to get things done with the right amount of persuasion. Why do you think there are no ethics laws in South Dakota.
As Winston is trying to explain above is the basics of Federalism. We are not a total libertarian / Rand society yet. We have our rules in each state and the Big banking industry has crafted South Dakota to be their special place.
The bankers do not trust us, creditors should never trust a debtor without verification. We investors (creditors) in stocks, bonds, certificates of deposit, savings accounts and more are items we the public trust bankers (debtors) to properly track then repay with interest. Per the contract signed between the two. Why should we ever believe a person who owes us money to repay it without the courts to help us? The Butler case allowed the banks to run roughshod over us, we are never to question their honesty or computer software.
“The reason for the move to South Dakota is the lack of audits.”
I’m going to disagree right there. In fact that had nothing to do with it, and there are many other states that would share that same structure if that was the primary point.
The reason the banks moved here was because of the efforts of Janklow to change state law to essentially gut the usury laws – which means First Premier can get away with charging 79.9% interest on a credit card while that same practice would be illegal in states like New York, California, Texas, or even Iowa. The lack of usury laws in SD combined with the Marquette decision of the late 70s enables banks residing in South Dakota to charge whatever interest rates and fees they choose.
In case you’re curious look up SD law 54-3-1.1. – “Rate of interest set by written agreement–No maximum or usury restriction.”
By the way, the lack of usury laws is why many credit card companies have also chosen Delaware as their headquarters, because once Delaware saw what South Dakota was doing they followed us and modified their usury laws as well. The one problem with Delaware is that they still have a corporate income tax.
Since we have no state corporate income tax, banks get to keep a larger slice of the pie, and that has kept them coming to South Dakota. This is why if you were paying attention in the 1980s you would have noticed a lot of banks called Nevada home – and this was because of that very same reason of no corporate income tax. However once Janks pushed through the changes to the usury laws, it opened the floodgates and then some time later we eliminated the corporate income tax and the banks just started knocking on our doors.
We now have banks that have relocated from New York, California, Minnesota, Washington, Nevada, Nebraska, Michigan…. any many, many more. It wasn’t because of some minuscule amount of lost property – it was because of interest rates. If you don’t believe that, then by all means find me the history or the legislation that surrounds missing property and see if you can match up the dates to the banking explosion. Won’t happen – because that has nothing to do with it.
Several states have dropped usury restrictions so it is just another so what for the considerations. The major benefit for these operations looking to make problems disappear is go to a state not wanting to look behind the curtain. Unclaimed property is only one of the unaudited functions the banks will move here.
If I were a banker and did not want a busy body digging into everything South Dakota would be the place to be.
With audit happy state regulators looking for lost or missing property in most states, why bother staying if they just have to move some paper charters around. The relatively simple paper get rid of a lot of audits. Most banks still operate on software designs of the late 1950’s when people did not move much.
How do you think the banksters were able to hide so much for so long during housing bubble? Banks may now have fancy covers hiding the cat box but the crap is still there. It is amazing to see what happens to responsible manager when they are asked to explain one of the scams running under their watch.
I’m a regular reader and find much of you stuff to be entertaining and informative. Unfortunately this recent post and the bulk of the comments it spawned are well off the mark in any number of ways.
From most recent events looking backwards: the legislation seeking to tap unclaimed property relates in part to large sums of unclaimed property that is basically funds that corporations don’t claim and are actually unidentifiable and a function of the large commercial trading activities that take place elsewhere. The funds that the state will receive is entirely a function of uniform laws relating to unclaimed property and the determination that banks are “located” where their home offices are designated.
The newfound source of funds that the state wants to use are not consumer funds at all, because consumer funds that are turned over by banks are identified with the consumer/owner. These funds are sent to the states of the last known address of the consumer, so therefore, the vast majority of this money goes out of state.
Contrary to some of the statements picked up in the story by Bob Mercer, banks have not located in SD for reasons related to taxes. In fact, states like Nevada have no taxes at all on banks.
In regard to the original decision on unclaimed propery, Judge Kean (a Democrat) decided that checks and money orders that come to Citibank’s payment processing center are most likely intended to be payments, because people don’t send money unless they owe on a bill. While the state indeed settled the case before the supreme court heard the appeal, the settlement was a gain to the state because the bank donated all of the $4 million that was in dispute for the wiring of the schools and related tech programs.
In regard to audit: Treasurer Butler wasn’t able to audit the bank, because as a national bank, he needed to first establish that there was reason to believe it wasn’t complying with the unclaimed property laws. While he had speculated there was all kinds of money being held by the bank in the form of unidentified payments, and this position (in fact his entire reason and platform for running for office) was based on an opinion of a single consultant who was out of the mainstream in the world of unclaimed property law, it was not the case. This was later supported by Judge Kean’s decision.
Butler also maintained that the money in the unclaimed property fund was held in trust in perpetuity when that wasn’t even close to being the case. Unfortunately, the Argus Leader’s Carson Walker was the primary reporter at the time, and he failed to pick up this and many other facts that were the platform for Butler’s public attack. When money goes into the unclaimed property fund it basically sits there for an instant, and the state looks at the historical level of claims made from year to year and holds back a contingent liability of sorts for what it may need to pay out any given year. Historically, and on a national basis, by using government accounting standards, the state may hold back 10% for claims. Everything else goes to the general fund and has for years and years.
Now you know the real story.
“Now you know the real story” and now we can thank you for the Citibank version of the story. There was reason for the the request to audit properly. It was not just a ‘consultant’ to blame. Remember in South Dakota under Janklow if you wanted to bury the story, take it to court or the Attorney General’s office to have it decided the way it needs to be done to make it look good. Kind of like the 2012 Gant decision.
Those of us involved all those years ago remember a lot more than the “official” record. Mr. Butler was not allowed to prosecute this case with the weight and finances of the State of South Dakota. He was restricted in every step he attempted to move forward on by the AG and Governor’s office as they were in concert with Citibank.
Judge Kean is a fine man and gave a decision at the time weighted in the maneuvers of Wild Bill. As a judge, he could only rule on the issues presented. Butler was never able to present a full case due to the added restrictions placed on him by the legislature.
There was also great fear in the possible closure of Citibank SD being circulated if the case was lost. Citibank was setting up the operations in Nevada to put pressure on South Dakota to back off on this and other issues.
So thank you to the bankster apologists commenting on this issue, it has been highly entertaining. There is Citibank’s “real” story and then there is truth. Butler was not able to perform his constitutional and fiduciary because of the road blocks placed in front of him including the loss of official constitutional office funding. When there is reports of loss or theft by any whistle blower, it was his responsibility to followup with a proper investigation.
Adding to the tax point, South Dakota has not had a state corporate income tax since 1944. But South Dakota has had a franchise tax (actually an income tax accessed against financial institutions only) since 1935.
As far as the Nevada issue, Citibank moved to South Dakota before it ever established a credit card operation in Nevada. They also located in Nevada as a back-up to the Sioux Falls facility because of the vulnerability of the Sioux Falls site to potential tornadic activity…that was told to me by a credible Citibank employee.
If I remember right, the state of South Dakota passed a law in the late 1990s making it a felony for a State Treasurer (Butler) to publicly disclose the amount of money it acquires from state banks do to unclaimed property.
When it is all said and done, South Dakota is to banking what Liberia is to the international maritime industry.
Dick Butler was to honest for SD politics. He truly was a watchdog for the people. He is so honest, that even the Democrat Party is uncomfortable with Dick Butler. If you want to get the real story, I would suggest calling him 605-393-5925 or 605 739-3671. He will tell you first hand how massively corrupt this state is.