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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

It can be worse. I got a letter recently from a mutual fund saying I'd done nothing with my account for years, and if they didn't hear from me soon, they were going to hand it over to the government.

(I'm a buy and hold, hold, hold, hold, investor.)

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Same. I've been handed over to the "where is this investor" support team a couple of times. Sometimes they are just trying to sell me additional services.

Now, I make a point of logging into all my financial accounts a couple of times every year. Easy to forget retirment/mutual fund/insurance accounts.

1. Verify balances and look for any sign of fraud.

2. Verify contact information (address / phone / email).

3. Titling: As you get older, make sure you understand how your account is titled. Individual / POD / Joint / Joint WROS / Trust / etc. Each of these has specific consequences to you.

4. Beneficiaries: Similarly, make sure you understand the significance of submitting beneficiaries on your accounts.

Example: I missed updating an older account to include my new wife.

This is a good place to start: https://store.nolo.com/products/estate-planning-basics-espn....

In Australia they changed inactive bank accounts from 7 years to 3 years and had to change it back to 7 years and 3 was way too short.

https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/financial-services/...

I have one fund I invested in 25 years ago and have had no communication with them for 20 years. They just send me 1099s and I pay the taxes.

Wow, this seems like one of those name and shame cases. A login shouldn't be expected here.

This is actually standard practice (in the U.S.), and there are official procedures to recover unclaimed assets. See: https://www.usa.gov/unclaimed-money

There's a great Planet Money episode I listened to recently about this.

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/24/799345159/episode-967-escheat...

There are state laws that require financial institutions to do this actually. Their hands are tied here. It's called "escheatment".

https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answersescheathtm.html

I can’t think of a more apt sounding term. (After theft)

if this is in the USA, it is most likely an "unclaimed property" law of their state. it isn't so much a name and shame, the company likely followed the state's policy and sent a notice to determine if the property should move to the state. but you can always file a claim for that and have the property returned. most states have a free website to search if you have any unclaimed property that the state is holding on your behalf, and then you get to fill out paperwork. i just searched for myself and I have about $80 from State Farm from 2001 and about $30 from Google from 2014. i know the state farm was a premium refund after i moved out of state and i guess they were not able to find me (although i was still with state farm in the other state, but i'm guessing in 2001 that wasn't easy for them to cross reference and possibly state farm is legally a different company in each state). no idea what the source of the Google money was, and also baffling why they couldn't find me as i've been an active customer since way before then, but also likely a scenario where one division doesn't talk to another and they still have to comply with the law.

Don't you need to interact with them somewhat every year to pay taxes?

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