Archive for October 8th, 2009

08 Oct 2009 Beth’s Red Shoes
Author: Gail |  Category: Consumer  | One Comment

a girl's best friend(s)

I’m in editing mode, and I’m supposed to be editing photos of people but I couldn’t help but edit some photos of Beth’s red wedding shoes. I have a thing for red shoes, and these were gorgeous! Click on the photo above to see it larger on my photo site.

Beth's red shoes

GEF_7044_edit

08 Oct 2009 Got An Unclaimed Bank Balance?
Author: Gail |  Category: Consumer  | 2 Comments

emblems

When my friend sent around this email today, I thought it was spam but oddly enough, it’s not!

From the Bank of Canada website:

What is an unclaimed balance?

An “unclaimed balance” is a Canadian-dollar deposit or negotiable instrument, issued or held by a federally regulated bank or trust company. It can be in the form of a deposit account, bank draft, certified cheque, deposit receipt, money order, GIC, term deposit, credit card balance, or traveller’s cheque.

When there has been no owner activity in relation to the balance for a period of 10 years, and the owner cannot be contacted by the institution holding it, the balance is turned over to the Bank of Canada, which acts as custodian on behalf of the owner.

Notice

Due to the passing of Bill C-37 the following rules came into effect March 29th 2007.

  • The Bank of Canada will now hold unclaimed balances for thirty years, once they have been inactive for ten years at the financial institutions. Therefore, balances will now be held for a total of forty years prior to being prescribed.
  • Only balances of less than $1,000 will be prescribed after the forty-year period. Previously the limit was less than $500.

Apparently the Bank of Canada has $351 million in unclaimed bank balances, and one of them may be yours. On their website you can search with your name to see if you have any money lying around that you’ve forgotten about.

The search form is here.
FAQs page is here.
How to claim your money.

My friend found some money for his cousin so I did a search under ‘Edwin’ to see if I or any of my family turned up. Nope…

In case it’s not obvious, this post only pertains to those with a Canadian bank account… maybe other countries have a similar search feature.

In a totally unrelated comment, doesn’t the Queen look awful on the latest $20 note? I know she’s getting on in years but really, give the lady a break — the image is seriously unflattering! The artists were much more forgiving on her last round of 20s…