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Denton Residents Surprised To Find Thousands In Unclaimed Property

DENTON (CBSDFW.COM) - In a room up on the third floor in the Denton County Administration Building dozens came Wednesday looking for something that at one point in their life they left behind.

"I was curious," said Linda Unger of Denton. "I wanted to see if there was any money out there with my name on it."

Denton County Treasurer Cindy Brown asked the Texas Comptroller's Office to send an unclaimed property specialist to her county to meet people in person.

While anyone can go onto the state comptroller's website, ClaimItTexas.org, and search themselves, she said many people don't because of a hesitation of wanting to enter personal information on the Internet.

The unclaimed property specialist found Unger had $55 on a gift card she never used.

Loretta Johnson of Denton discovered she had $804 from an old checking account.

Julie Earnest said she hit the jackpot. She had $3,600 of unclaimed property from mineral rights she said she never knew she owned.

Most of those who came Wednesday found out they had unclaimed property, although, in many cases the amount was only a few dollars.

"I had grand total of a $1.83," said Curtis Himes. "It's more than I expected to get because I wasn't expecting to get anything."

The State of Texas has $3.8-billion in its unclaimed property program.

Since taking office in 2007, Comptroller Susan Combs has returned more than $1-billion to unclaimed property owners.

The state estimates one out of every four Texans has unclaimed property.

(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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