The Truth about Unclaimed Monies

I passed another billboard advertising unclaimed monies yesterday.

It’s bright yellow text lured highway drivers’ eyes suggesting that somewhere–in some unknown vault–their state government might be holding unclaimed money for them.

It’s not just billboards making this claim of course. It’s magazine ads, television commercials and google ad words too. And–you probably know–if you call the number or click the link on most of them, they don’t take you to your state’s treasury department.

Instead, they take you to a company that will sell you information about unclaimed monies, beginning with charging you for the 1-809 phone call you just made when you called them.

The fact that these companies profit off of people’s wishful thinking makes me sad.

But the fact that people keep calling and clicking at rates that keep hundreds, maybe thousands of these scam-artists in business, makes me sick over what excites us as humans.

You know what valuable items I think are probably sitting around unclaimed? Not money. But all those dreams people had along the way, but lost track of.

That business they were going to start.
That charitable cause they were going to champion.
That craft they were going to learn.

Our real fortune are sitting around in unclaimed dreams, left back where we left them when life got too busy for inconveniences like vision and hope.

But how many people will really bother tracking their dreams down for the promise of a better life? I’m scared billboards might get more responses if they promised 3 out of 10 people had unclaimed magic beans from a fairy godmother.

What about you? More likely to chase money? Or dreams? And what does that say?