IDEA: Make your customer happy. Show him he has ‘unclaimed’ property waiting to be claimed.

Tell your customer about his company’s unclaimed property:

Tell your customers and vendors about potential refunds held by their state they may not know about and be a hero.  An impressive and memorable thing your sales personnel can do before visiting new or existing customers is look up any unclaimed property in those states where the customers operate.  Each of the fifty states have unclaimed property funds (2013 $58 Billion) which may contain monies paid to the state government in behalf of your potential client that need to be claimed by someone in your client’s organization (normally accounting or legal personnel).  Not all companies have funds waiting to be claimed but it is worth looking.

Show the buyer how to search personally for his own or his family’s unclaimed property.

Here is something free, but valuable, that your sales person can give away.  Your sales person might consider looking also for the buyer’s personal name since the funds include returns for individuals as well as companies. Telling the buyer he has a refund that he needs to claim will improve your client relationship or take a couple of minutes and show him how to look for it himself. He will enjoy this and remember your sales call.

These refunds may stem from vendor refunds, vendor discounts, returns from title closings, awards from class action lawsuits, returns of overpaid utility bills, returns of deposits or any number of things that cause checks to be issued, get lost or fail to be delivered and then ultimately get returned to the issuer. All states require the issuers to deliver those funds to the rightful owner.  If the payee is not found, the in state payors must forward the monies to the state in which they were issued.