MONEY GOES BEGGING

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 February 1936, Page 3

MONEY GOES BEGGING

EXTRAORDINARY CASES. ; What, in the aggregate, would be a fortune for the average person is going begging in the Commonwealth Bank, after most exhaustive steps by the bank authorities to establish claimants to it (says the “Sydney Morning Herald’’). It represents nearly 2500 unclaimed deposits of’ a total value of approximately £14,000, and includes, among a large number of-accounts running into hundreds of pounds, one for £638 in the name of a woman whose account is in the Perth branch of the bank. Of the other big unclaimed deposits—one for £448, another for £350, and the third for £3l9—two are in the Perth branch and one is in the Adelaide brnach. The one for £3so,*.in the Adelaide branch, is in the name of a woman.

Bank officials tell of extraordinary cases which have come under their notice, of large sums that have literally gone begging in- Sydney and in other parts of Australia. A man in Sydney, engaged in one of the manufacturing lines, deposited in the Commonwealth Savings Bank between £5OO and £6OO. Ultimately, after the amount originally deposited had increased to nearly £lOOO with interest, and after'the account had been left untouched for years, the bank authorities traced the depositor, who calmly admitted that he had completely forgotten about the account. His identification having been established, he was paid the money, with the accumulated interest. He was fortunate to get it before the account had ceased to operate for seven years or upwards, in which event it would, with its inclusion in the unclaimed fund, have ceased to bear interest. Some of the stories of unclaimed deposits are humorous, although there is, no doubt, a note of tragedy behind others, if one could only trace the circumstances of individual cases.

A CHINESE PUZZLE. In the Brisbane branch of the bank there was about £6OO in the unclaimed fund, in the name of a Chinese. The list of unclaimed deposits was published. A few days later a Chinese walked into the Brisbane branch and claimed to be the owner of the money. Then began the task, especially difficult in the case of a foreigner who knew little English and could barely write his own name, of establishing the identity of the Chinese, after the lapse of many years. The bank insisted upon personal identification, with other signed proofs. The Chinese, with a puzzled look, walked out of the bank. About 12 months later, the bank officials were amazed when he again entered the bank and asked for the money. This time he was armed with signed proofs of his ownership of the money. It was learned that he had lived within practically 10 minutes’ walk of the bank during the whole of the 16 years in which he had left untouched a sum that had gradually grown to what must have been, for him, a small fortune. Even more puzzling was his disappearance for about a year after having first made, his claim on the money. He finally establised his proof of ownership. Some years ago, a prominent business man in Sydney opened a Savings

Bank account with £ 500. The money was still in the bank on his death, and it was finally carried to the unclaimed fund, when steps were successfully taken by the bank to establish ownership. The balance -to the man’s credit had grown to £9OO.

WOMAN’S TRUST IN BANK. An elderly woman opened an account in the Brisbane branch and did not operate on it for about 20 yeais. One day, after the lapse of two decades, she wrote to the bank from New Zealand, where she was then residing, inquiring for the money. “I knew the money, was Quite safe,” she wrote, “so I did not bother about it before.” Bank officials pride themselves, justifiably, upon the manner in which they cleared up the entanglements of soldiers’ accounts during and after the war. Men would explain, for example, that, in a “hop-over” against the enemy, they had carried their pass books in one of their pockets, and that, in the, confusion of battle, the books had disappeared'. The clearingup of soldiers’ accounts was a. tremendous task. Recently, there appeared in one of the London newspapers a paragraph referring to unclaimed deposits in the Commonwealth Bank. The announcement was not accompanied by any list of depositors with unclaimed amounts, but, by the next mail or two, letters poured into the hank from all parts of Great Britain, pointing out that Jones, or Brown, or Smith, for example, had left for Australia back in the dim past, and asking the bank to ascertain whether long-lost relatives had left deposits unclaimed. It is significant that there are few foreigners among the thousands of depositors with unclaimed accounts.

Provision is made in the Commonwealth Bank Act, 1911-1932, for the publication annually in the Commonwealth “Gazette” of lists of money brought into the fund and not claimed. It is also provided that all moneys in respect of which a claim is not established within 10 years after its inclusion in any published list shall become the property of the bank. There is thus provided a period of grace of 17 years in all. Even then, however, the governor of the bank may, with the consent of the Federal Treasurer, allow any claim, after the expiration of that long period, if he is satisfied beyond any doubt that special reasons exist for allowing the claim.