The New York State Comptroller's Office is looking to connect New Yorkers with more than $15 billion in unclaimed funds.
The office has a websitewhere you can check to see if you are owed money.
According to the website, the state returns $1 million every day to those who file claims on the site.
In Erie County alone, more than 250,000 accounts are owed money.
The largest personal account ever paid was over $4 million to an individual from a stock claim and the largest amount still unclaimed is more than $8 million for an estate.
There is no fee to reclaim funds.
Although 65 percent of the unclaimed amounts are under $100, there are a number of large outstanding accounts in Erie and Niagara counties:
- The largest amount for an individual is a Buffalo resident with three abandoned bank accounts totaling $379,000.
- Two owners with a Depew address have $42,457 with a joint bank account.
- A resident of Hamburg has $51,803 from an insurance policy refund.
- A Lancaster resident is entitled to claim $156,000 from an expired time deposit account.
- An East Amherst resident is entitled to $102,000 from a stock distribution.
- Orchard Park residents may be able to claim a large outstanding account: a joint tax refund in the amount of $253,000 or an investment account balance of $165,000.
- Tonawanda has seven owners with more than $50,000 in unclaimed funds; 32 owners with more than $20,000 and 76 owners with more than $10,000.
- A Lockport resident is a beneficiary to a life insurance policy of $125,347.
- Lewiston has four residents entitled to claim more than $50,000 each.
- Niagara Falls has 16 people that can claim more than $50,000 and 294 owners that can claim more than $5,000 including a living trust account valued at more than $200,000.
- North Tonawanda has a resident with two accounts from matured endowments totaling $212,371 and two residents listed as beneficiaries to a death benefit for more than $85,000 each.
