County Releases Unclaimed Money List; Campbell Businesses Make An Appearance

, Campbell-Saratoga Youth Football League and are among the list of approximately 1,350 that potentially have unclaimed money on deposit with the Santa Clara County.

The county posted the second release with the two lists of people and companies on Monday and last week on April 18. It posts the list every three years, the last time in 2007, when the total up for grabs was $400,000.

Now a total of nearly $545,000 is sitting at the county and needs to be claimed by May 27, or a portion of it will go to the county general fund and the other will go to the District Attorney Victim Witness Assistance Program.

"Both lists are unclaimed money," says Dora Espinoza, revenue fiscal officer for the county. "One has to do with trust accounts. We serve as a collection agency for various services. Sometimes we have overpayments to those accounts. When there’s overpayments, that’s what the list has to do. We cannot locate these parties.

The other list is for victim restitution, Espinoza says, for "those that are a victim in a crime, when a defendant went to court and is asked to pay. This is the payment. That’s why they're on this list."

Katie Blooms has a total of $279 since April 27, 2006, waiting for it on the restitution list. The football league has $28 since Aug. 20, 2004, and Campbell U-Save Liquors has $35.87 since Sept. 26, 2007, both on that same list. One company, CSSA, has two accounts totalling nearly $16,000 in unclaimed money.

The reason these and the 1,350 others on the two lists have been there for so long is because when the county receives the contact information from the courts, it goes to them in a limited capacity, sometimes with just an address, Espinoza says.

"These people and businesses are on these lists because we have exhausted all our resources to get those monies to them," she says.

There are various scenarios of how the county tried to track down both individuals and businesses. Sometimes, the businesses are defunct. Another reason is a change of ownership. Other times, people have died.

"There’s various reasons," Espinoza says. "In some cases, because we have lots of accounts to go through, because of the dollar amount, we don’t have the resources to trace each and every one. That one (Katie Blooms) could have fallen into that category."

People who believe that they may be due a refund or victim restitution payment based on the published names should contact the Department of Revenue at 408-282-3203 to obtain a claim form.

The claim form requires information, including name, address, amount of claim, and the grounds on which the claim is founded. A valid ID must be provided when submitting the form.

For more information or to look through those lists, visit here.