Shirley Brown was certain it was a scam. It had all the makings of a scam: secret money, a company offering to do the paperwork for a cut of the secret money, a strange phone call, and letter out of nowhere.
She immediately told her husband that she thought the company was a fraud. Still, she was curious. They had her name and a list of her former addresses in South Carolina.
"This has to be a scam," she recalls thinking.
The request was from Advanced Recovery Consultants. With a little research, Shirley discovered that the company had an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, and that the company doesn't expect payment until you receive yours.
Shirley used the Unclaimed Property government website from South Carolina to verify the information. She had over $400 waiting for her.
"I was just stunned to see it," she said.
The company wasn't a fake after all. While you can use companies like this one, you can also see if you have unclaimed money without the middle man, using Shirley's method of going through the government search engine.
Although Shirley got lucky, it is still always important to remain discerning of companies claiming you have secret money. In Shirley's case, she did everything right: consulted someone she trusted, checked with the Better Business Bureau, and did further research.
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