BLOG: Claim Your Cash Final Numbers
By Jim Donovan: Did you "Claim Your Cash"? If you watched me last week on CBS 3 Eyewitness News and the CW Philly, I sounded like a broken record!
Beginning on Wednesday night and then continuing all day on Thursday I encouraged our viewers to check with various state treasury departments in our region to see if they were owed any unclaimed property or cash. In Pennsylvania alone the treasury is holding 1.6 billion dollars for people just waiting to be claimed. The cash is from un-cashed pay checks, insurance money, stock dividends, dormant bank accounts, you name it.
My goal in producing what we called "Claim Your Cash" Day was to get people to at least do a quick search of the lists that state treasuries make available online. Often I would get the same response, even from my colleagues – "I'm not owed anything." Well my reply would be – "How do you know for sure?" In fact over half the people that I work with here at CBS 3 who told me they weren't owed money, I found on the lists!
But thank goodness our viewers were listening! According to Treasurer Rob McCord's office, in Pennsylvania over 5.7 million dollars has been claimed as a result of our "Claim Your Cash" Day. You read it correctly, 5 point 7 million, with an "M", dollars! New Jersey and Delaware weren't monitoring the claims amounts for us, but I can say with confidence that probably another million dollars were claimed in those states too.
For those of you that are number geeks, here are some that I came up with related to Claim Your Cash Day:
$5,784,995....Money Claimed in Pennsylvania
$40,789....Largest Claim Filed in PA
243,042....Page Views To Money Search Links on CBSPhilly.com
12,223...Total Number of PA Claims
10,956....Number of Online Claims
8,192...Calls to PA Treasury
741....Names of people owed money put on screen crawl
240....Names Announced on TV by Jim on Morning Shows
48....Times Jim Announced Names on Morning Shows
45....Treasury Operators Answering Phones
3....CBS 3 Camera Persons Involved Story/Live-shots
3....CBS 3 Editors Involved
1....CBS 3 Producer, Jenn Coleman, who helped me type hundreds of names
1....Special Person Who Made Things Happen -Elizabeth Foose PA Treasury
1....Number of aspirin consumed by Jim during during day
$0....Owed to Jim after he checked lists in PA, NJ, OH, NY and NC
If you still want to see if you're owed cash by a state that you have lived in, then visit the links:
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/02/11/claim-your-cash/
