It's for real. But good luck getting the state or territory to relinquish your money. I have two items which Washington has been holding onto for over a decade -- a gift certificate I bought someone who never used it, and a premium I sent to an insurance company which neither insured me nor returned it. Washington has been demanding since I first made claim that I provide the original gift certificate and written proof of my "business relationship" with the insurance company that wouldn't insure me.

Governments love escheat. They don't surrender what they take unless you have a ridiculous level of documentation, which of course no one does because otherwise how would the funds have fallen into the government's hands? It's a great modern form of Catch 22.

I found my name in two states, and my parents' names in one. I think I submitted a claim in the past for the one in Massachusetts, and the state claimed they had no record of it, but it keeps popping up in these sorts of searches, so I resubmitted a claim. The California one was new and recent (and, like, $60), so we'll see if anything comes of that.

I'm not sure about the ones for my parents, or at least for my mom, since she's deceased. I submitted a claim on behalf of my father for his, and as an heir on mom's.

When millions of dollars come pouring into my family, I'll let you know :-)

My mom & her siblings actually got a (split) result in the low hundreds back from Iowa from a thing like this due to some company that misrepresented earnings to my grandpa. I guess that's a positive, but I'm not exactly counting on retiring on hidden family treasure.

Thanks, bunnies! working on a small claim now for my Mom's estate. It
had never occurred to me before to check on Mom or Dad. However, based
on our previous dealings with the agency we will be needing to pry money
out of - I'm not expecting this to be a seamless process. ;)