If your name is Blaine or Burger or Cassim or Epstein or Hloele or Mgcwaba or Stevens or any one of thousands of surnames ... your share of some R500 million may be waiting to be claimed.
This is the amount of money estimated to be held in trust in the Guardian`s Fund, to which unclaimed bequests, company dividends, and proceeds of insolvencies are sent to be held in trust by the State for 30 years before being forfeited.
Until recently it has not been easy to find out whether you are the intended beneficiary of such funds. But thanks to the Internet and Virtual Card Services` secure payment system, it is now simpler than playing a computer game.
Just log on to www.UnclaimedMoney.co.za and for a modest fee you can search the database of 30 years worth of Guardian`s Fund information published originally in the Government Gazette.
This Web site provides you with access to a database of more than 100 000 records. The procedures are relatively simple. You buy a search -- one surname costs R30, two surnames R40 or four surnames R50 -- and use the QuickScan tools to research these names before running a detailed search to find the necessary claim details. The site also gives full details of how to register your claim.
Many people are, of course, reluctant to make online payments via credit card because of the growing risk of fraud. The Web site has solved this problem by contracting with Virtual Card Services (VCS), a leading South African electronic payment gateway that provides secure credit card transactions.
VCS acts as an intermediary between merchant and financial institution, creating a fully automated online link for the authorisation and settlement of credit card payments.
"Ensuring that the payment facility was secure originally appeared to be a major problem," said Les Juby, proprietor of UnclaimedMoney.co.za. "The first solution adopted proved unviable because of the high cost. We then heard about VCS, which offers its services at a low set-up and transaction fee. The service has proved superior in every way; it is flexible and there are no administrative hassles. In fact, we hardly ever talk to them, the service runs so smoothly."
Having proved the system works with the Guardian`s Fund, Juby is working towards listing other sources of unclaimed money.
"We believe that the amount of unclaimed money in the banking system dwarfs that of the Guardian`s Fund," he says. "Other huge caches of unclaimed money are in the form of unclaimed insurance funds, endowments, provident funds and payout of shareholders from demutualisation.
"Regrettably, as other people have discovered before us, the banks and insurance companies are not very co-operative about making information on these funds available to the public. Nevertheless, we intend plugging away. It would take just one financial institution to see the advantage of going public with information about these unclaimed funds and the rest would come under huge pressure to follow suit. When that happens we are geared to offer a service. Our site can already accommodate more than 100 times the visitors it now receives."
Meanwhile, there may be a significant sum due to you and just waiting to be claimed. But even if your search fails to uncover an inheritance, you can still benefit. UnclaimedMoney.co.za`s Referral Commission Programme provides the opportunity for searchers to earn commissions worth many times your initial search fee.
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