13,000 Oregonians Are Getting Checks of $50 to $10,000 This Month for Money They Never Claimed, and They Don’t Have to Do Anything

An envelope from Oregon State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner is landing in about 13,000 mailboxes this month, and inside is a check. The amounts run from $50 to $10,000, and together they return about $7 million that businesses could not deliver to their rightful owners.

The recipients did not file anything to get the money. The state found them on its own through a program called Checks Without Claims.

Where the money comes from

The Oregon State Treasury announced the payments on Oct. 23. The funds were reported to the state in 2024 by businesses and organizations that had been unable to return them.

That kind of money builds up quietly. The Treasury lists the most common forms of unclaimed property as:

• Uncashed checks
• Forgotten bank accounts
• Tax refunds
• Credit balances
• Investment accounts
• Payroll checks

Normally, getting that money back means the owner has to search the state’s database and file a claim.

Steiner said the money “belongs in Oregonians’ pockets, not sitting unclaimed.”

Why these 13,000 people did not have to file

Checks Without Claims flips the usual process. Instead of waiting for owners, the Treasury identifies eligible owners itself and mails the money. Recipients in this round were notified in September that they might have unclaimed property, and the checks are going out in October with a letter from the treasurer, KTVZ reported.

The approach has grown since it started. Since 2020, the program has returned about $30 million to more than 70,000 people. In 2023, the Treasury described in its newsletter, The Ledger, how that year’s campaign verified owners of property reported in 2018, 2019 and 2020, working with other state agencies and its data management partner, Kelmar. That effort returned more than $10 million to more than 18,000 people living in Oregon and 47 other states.

The rounds have varied in size. Ahead of National Unclaimed Property Day in 2025, the Treasury said it had returned nearly $18 million through Checks Without Claims the year before and planned to send about 23,000 checks worth roughly $13 million in 2025. It also reported a record reporting year, with businesses turning over more than $210 million in unclaimed property. This year’s round, at about $7 million for 13,000 people, is smaller than either of those.

Oregon is not the only state doing this. Pennsylvania’s Treasury runs a similar “Money Match” program that pays up to $500 to a single verified owner without a claim, and it said in March that it was mailing nearly $23 million in new checks to more than 100,000 Pennsylvanians, the Gettysburg Connection reported. That program, created under a 2024 state law, returned more than $50 million in 2025. Pennsylvania holds about $5 billion in unclaimed property, and its Treasury estimates more than one in 10 residents is owed some of it.

Maryland has its own version, called Quick Pay, which mails checks without a claim for certain single-owner accounts worth less than $5,000 when the state can locate the owner. The Comptroller’s Office had mailed 23,178 Quick Pay checks totaling $11,349,428 since December, an average of $489.66, and planned another 9,729 checks worth about $248,000 in mid-October, WMAR reported in September. Maryland’s office sends a letter about 45 days ahead to confirm the address and skips the check if that letter comes back undeliverable.

Telling a real letter from a fake one

An unexpected check is also the kind of thing scammers imitate. The Treasury’s release does not list special verification steps, but it does give official contacts. Anyone unsure whether a letter or check is genuine can email [email protected] or call the Unclaimed Property Program at 503-378-4000, and the program’s own pages sit on the oregon.gov domain.

Two facts from the state help separate real offers from fake ones. Claiming unclaimed property in Oregon is always free, and the funds never expire. Any message that asks for a fee to release unclaimed money, or claims the money will vanish unless paid for quickly, does not match how the state program works.

Similar warnings apply to other government payments this fall. Social Security’s inspector general has flagged callers offering to “activate” the 3.6% COLA, a raise that arrives on its own with no action or payment required.

The $1 billion still waiting

The 13,000 checks cover only a sliver of what the state holds. The Treasury says more than $745 million has been returned over the last 20 years, and about $1 billion more is ready to be claimed. Nearly one in seven people in the U.S. has unclaimed money, according to the release.

People who did not get a letter can still search. The state’s unclaimed property site lets anyone look up a name, and filing a claim there costs nothing. The Treasury’s claims team can be reached at 503-378-4000 for questions about a specific account.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons