Find Mass. Money not so easy, says Massachusetts couple who struggled to collect $11,000
The ads for the Find Mass. Money website in Massachusetts make it seem easy. But getting the cash from the state's Unclaimed Property Division can be difficult, according to a couple from Amesbury.
About a year ago, Meryl Goldsmith and her husband Scott Penoyer thought they hit the jackpot. The state notified Penoyer that he had an old Morgan Stanley account with more than $11,000 in it. The couple said they followed the instructions and filed a claim. But that was not the end of it. The state needed the account certified.
"They need Morgan Stanley basically to fill out the rest of this form and that's where it just kind of falls," Penoyer said.
After struggling for months to get Morgan Stanley to certify the account, Goldsmith reached out to the I-Team's Call for Action.
"I watch your pieces, and I said if anybody is going to be able to find somebody to ask whether this is actually there and who to talk to next it would be you," Goldsmith said.
After the I-Team reached out to Morgan Stanley, Penoyer finally got his money.
"You rattled a couple of cages," Goldsmith said. "It was amazing."
While the couple was happy to have the cash, they think the state could have made the process much easier.
Ron Lizzi is an advocate for the state's unclaimed money reforms and has been spearheading efforts all over the country to get states to do a better job returning it.
"They should automatically return money without requiring claims. At least 20 states are already doing that, and Massachusetts should join them," Lizzi said.
The I-Team asked Mark Bracken, the director of state's Unclaimed Property Division, if he thought the treasurer's office could do anything to make it easier.
"Not necessarily," Bracken said. "I mean we can always do better but we're one of the highest returned states in the nation. Last year we paid out just over 130,000 claims, around 80,000 of them were fast tracked and paid online without anyone ever having to fill out paperwork."
While Penoyer and Goldsmith said their experience was challenging, in the end getting the money was a windfall.
"You know $11,000 is a lot of money," Goldsmith said. "We're putting some of the money away but we're doing something a little crazy. We're joining his two brothers and we're going out to Vegas to see the Eagles at the Sphere," Goldsmith said.
According to Bracken, Massachusetts has more than $3.5 billion in unclaimed assets. That includes forgotten bank accounts, tax refunds and uncashed checks. In 2024, it returned more than $175 million.
