SUBJECTS: Australia's unclaimed millions
HOST:
Good morning Perth, it's 7 past 7 on The Bunch with Freddy, Lisa and Captain Paul as we wait for a beautiful party cloudy, 30 in Perth today. You may have seen the story yesterday where there is $677 million in unclaimed cash. Gee, you could build another Perth Arena and have some left over. But it is waiting for all of us as www.moneysmart.gov.au.
HOST:
It's waiting for some of us.
HOST:
Joining us, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer Bernie Ripoll. Good morning Bernie, thanks for talking to us.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Morning Fred, Lisa, how are you?
HOST:
Good morning. Now this is such an amazing amount of money to have just been misplaced.
Host: Well, it is a lot of money, there's no question about that and it is sort of misplaced. What it is is either accounts that have been either forgotten or just unclaimed money. What typically happens is after seven years, if you've got money in a bank account and there's no activity at all, including you can't be contacted, then the money is transferred over to ASIC and it's held with ASIC and it's held there for ever if you ever come forward and claim it, prove that it's yours obviously, that you're the rightful owner, then the money is transferred back. But the beauty of doing that is that there are no more fees and charges taken out of your money and the Government is also moving changes to make sure you also get CPI inflation increase (inaudible) to keep money with the pace of time.
HOST:
Right. Cause I'd heard that some super that was in those places would just whittle away.
RIPOLL:
Look, that's currently the case. So if you've got a small superannuation balance and no further contributions or activity what happens is the fees and charges over time will just reduce it to almost nothing. What if it's transferred over to the ATO under the new system, what it will means is it gets there faster and which means you can also search for your money cause it's then listed on a national database, both with ASIC and with the ATO and you can actually search your name and in fact, one of your lucky listeners, perhaps, who lives in Carlisle Western Australia has a dormant bank account with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia for $992 000. Unbelievable.
HOST:
No.
HOST:
What?
HOST:
What was the address again?
RIPOLL:
Well actually, the address is listed. A lot of addresses are actually listed, but often the person has moved to another address and hasn't left a forwarding address and can no longer be contacted.
HOST:
Wow. Do you know how long that's been sitting there Bernie?
RIPOLL:
Look, that one's been there for quite a while. So it's possible that money's been transferred in from a third party and the individual's not aware or it could be a deceased estate.
HOST:
I was going to say, could the individual be dead?
HOST:
Could the individual be me?
RIPOLL:
Well, just for fun I myself thought I would type my name in and see if I was the lucky recipient but unfortunately no. There are other Mr Ripolls out there who are more fortunate than me. There is another account in Perth which is to the value of $785 000 and that was a compulsory acquisition through Southern Star Group Limited, so somebody owns that money and hasn't come forward. So there is a lot of money out there and the Government is very keen this year to be promoting this new database. That's the moneysmart.gov.au and all you need to do is just literally click on the database, type in your name, could be a family members name, even a friends if you really wanted to, anybody and look up who has unclaimed money and if you think it is somebody you know, tell them. Let them know and maybe it is them and they can reconnect with their funds.
HOST:
One click and I'm out of here.
HOST:
We'll put that link up on our facebook page. Now Bernie, this seems to happen about once a year and there's a list. How much gets claimed when the list comes out every year, do you know?
RIPOLL:
Look, yes, last year there was $57 million claimed. So a lot of people, yeah, being reconnected with their lost funds.
HOST:
Well, it's worth the search. Even if you're pretty sure you haven't got anything in there.
RIPOLL:
Look, absolutely and money generally comes from, it's from banks or credit unions, but it can also come be shares or life insurance policies. Sometimes somebody may have twenty years ago had a life insurance policy which they've stopped contributing to or just completely forgotten they had, they've moved address maybe two or three times and they're no longer contactable, so unless you're name then appears on a national database you'd never be able to find it, that's the beauty of this moneysmart.gov.au search database.
HOST:
Excellent.
HOST:
Excellent. Well, thank you for your time this morning Bernie.
RIPOLL:
My please, thanks Fred.
HOST:
That link's up on our facebook page, so there's nothing stopping people getting reconnected. It's like a dating website isn't it.
HOST:
I've found some.
HOST:
You found some? You're joking.
HOST:
Yeah, my brother. I searched for myself. I've got nothing but my brother's got $2.20.
HOST:
Don't tell him.
HOST:
That was Bernie Ripoll, who's the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer.