Why Was My Bank Account Closed?

By Author: Nicole Anderson
Total Articles: 48
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If you have an old bank account and you have not done any transactions in past several years, then your account might be on a high risk. The bank probably will close down your account and you may loose all savings. Does this really mean you can lose all your money? And why would the bank will close your account? How can you get your savings back, if this happens? The answers to these questions are surprisingly quite simple.

Why a bank close your account

A bank has number of reasons to close up an account. If an account is left inactive for couple of years and the account owner cannot be contacted after several attempts by the post office then a bank can consider holding all the transactions being made through the account.

Another reason is that if a bank is left uninformed about change of address and all the monthly account statements are being returned from them post office continuously contributes towards closing up of an account. A change of address should be reported immediately to a bank. This can save your account from getting closed up.

Usually, a bank holds all transactions of a particular ...
... account for 3 yrs. In between this period if an account holder returns to the bank, then all transactions again starts occurring. However, after 3 yrs, bank permanently closes down the account and the leftover is transferred to state treasury department as an unclaimed money.

Getting back your lost account

Getting back your account or lost money is a difficult task because there are 75 federal unclaimed money accounts existing and only one of them will have your unclaimed money. However, there are number of ways you can make this job very easy. You can conduct unclaimed money search on various dedicated internet websites. Many of these websites offer free search for their visitors and provides number of facilities making their searches easier.

On these websites you just need to put your name in search box and hit enter. In a moment you will get all the details about your lost old bank account and from which bank.

Once you get relevant information your next move would be to claim the account. On a website, you will be provided with a claiming form as well. Just fill that form and submit it to the website. You also need to submit your identification proof with this.

Precautions to be taken for unclaimed money search

Never search particular database of a specific state. Do a thorough search on all 50 states and federal database. This really helps when you are finding you bank account, which is in another state.

Stay away from poor database websites as you have a lot other option, giving you all unclaimed money database at one place. Searching on a good website, lists out all possible results related to entered query, which is generally your legal name.

Apart from lost account search, find other possible options that are likely to give your unclaimed money such as deposit boxes, insurance returns, dividends etc.

Can the closed bank account get re-open?

Most times, banks offer to open a new account instead of reopening the closed account. It is likely that you may not get the same number. Once the account gets transferred to state treasury department, there is no direct relation of the bank with your account.

Ways to save your account

Firstly, notify your bank as soon as you change your address. Also track all your investment documents and all the banks, institutions in which you have put all your savings just like insurance companies, utility companies, bonds, dividends etc.

Moreover, we recommend performing an unclaimed money search at least once in a year. And perform the same for your friends and family members. So, if you are yet to perform a search, don't waste your time anymore, just log onto the net and find good resources that can help you track down unclaimed money.