Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Can’t remember if your U.S. savings bond has matured? Can’t find it? Missing an interest payment? Help is on the way.
The Treasury Department announced yesterday a new link on its savings bond Web site, dubbed "Treasury Hunt," to help people find missing bonds and interest payments and learn whether their bonds have matured.
Rather than writing the government to find out, investors can conduct a database search by clicking on the "Treasury Hunt" link and providing their name, city, state and Social Security number. The secured site lets them know if a match is found and tells what to do about it.
The database, which will be regularly updated, has information on about 160,000 bonds and interest payments that couldn’t be delivered, and bonds that matured but haven’t been redeemed.
Bonds are deemed undeliverable only after the issuing financial institution or the Federal Reserve has made several attempts to deliver them.
The most common cause for an interest payment to be returned is when an investor moves or changes bank accounts and doesn’t give the government new delivery instructions, the bureau said.
Roughly 20 million savings bonds, worth $8 billion, have matured. While owners usually know where those bonds are, they often don’t realize they have stopped earning interest, the bureau said.
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