Why so quick in transferring unclaimed monies?

"WOULDN'T it be nice to find out that there is money due to you? Now, you can actually perform an online index search to see if you have any money with the Registrar of Unclaimed Moneys. The Unclaimed Moneys Act 1965 requires businesses to send to the government a report on any unclaimed moneys in their possession. Unclaimed money can be in the form of dormant bank account monies, share dividends, life insurance policies, unclaimed wages and EPF contributions..."

Source:

The Edge: Have any unclaimed money? By Lim Siew May on 26 Jan 2011

http://www.theedgemalaysia.com/mobile/article.php?id=180658

I found an outdated cheque (08/04/2010) for Rm56.25 from Chuan Huat Resources Bhd and decided to claim for it. The following were the steps I had to go through:

1. Called up the listed company's registrars, Sectrars Services Sdn Bhd and was told to write to them with a copy of the cheque;

2. Received a reply from Sectrars (14/02/2012) informing me that they had submitted my claim to Pendaftar Wang Tak Dituntut, and to wait for their acknowledgement;

3. Received a letter from Sectrars (15/03/2012) instructing me to complete an enclosed Form UMA-7, together with their confirmation letter for submission to PWTD;

4. Sent by ordinary post the completed form with the confirmation letter today; and

5. Now sit and wait, and hope it will reach PWTD and then a cheque for the amount claimed.

It should be noted that with the e-Dividend system in place, such problems of dividend cheques lost in the post or misplaced by recipients will be increasingly rare. But until then, I believe there must be many instances of 'dormant bank account monies, share dividends, life insurance policies, unclaimed wages and EPF contributions' which our government has been accumulating happily. I can still remember the days when such transfers of unclaimed monies were done after 7 years! In the case of my dividend cheque, after just over a year and it was transferred! I can also remember our government had announced some time ago (rubbing their hands in glee, I suppose) that they will be using the accumulated unclaimed billions in EPF accounts! I could sense the almost indecent eagerness to transfer unclaimed monies to the government.

I wonder how many of us would take the trouble to go through what I had been through for just Rm56.25! But I did it partly to gather first hand information on the claiming procedure.

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