UNCLAIMED MONEY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 31 January 1936, Page 2

UNCLAIMED MONEY

DEPOSITS IN BANKS STRANGE AUSTRALIAN CASES FORGETFUL MANUFACTURER SYDNEY, 20th January. What, in the aggregate, would be a fortune for the average person is going begging in the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, after most exhaustive steps by the bank authorities to establish claimants to it. 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 £G3B 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 £3lo—two are in the Perth branch and one is" in the Adelaide branch. The one for £350, in the Adelaide branch, is in the name of a woman. Bank officials told recently 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 £SOO and £6OO. Ultimately, after the amount originally deposited had increased to nearly £IOOO 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. A PUZZLED CHINESE 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 he the owner of the money. Then began the task, especially difficult in the case of a foreigner who knew little English and coukl_ barely write his own name of establishing the identity of the Chinese, after the lapse of many years. The hank 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 ten minutes’ walk of the bank during the whole of the 16 years in which he had left untouched a sum that had gradually grown into what must have been, for him, a small for.-, tune. Some years ago, a prominent business man in Sydney opened a Savings Bank account with £SOO. 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.

ELDERLY WOMAN’S TRUST . An elderly woman opened 'to account in the Bisbane branch ailtT- did not operate on it for about 20 years, One day 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 hooks in one of their pockets, and that, in the confusion of batt’le, the books had disappeared. The clearing up 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, hut, by the next mail or two, letters poured into the bank from all parts of Great Britain, pointing out that Jones, or Brown, or Smith, for example, had left for Australia hack in the dim past, and asking the hank to ascertain whether long-lost relatives, had left deposits unclaimed.