Free money. It does exist! Well, at least money you didn’t know you had. Find easy money by looking for old accounts, lost pensions and missing assets. And we’ve just heard of another place you could get free money – your old telecoms company.

Money for free – you’re joking aren’t you?

Well it might not be free money – but it’s money you’ve already got but you don’t know about. So you don’t have to earn it or spend to get it. It’s just lying around waiting for you to claim it.

There is at least £15 billion in unclaimed financial assets lying around in Britain, according to UAR (Unclaimed Assets Register), an organisation run by credit agency Experian. That’s a massive figure and basically means there are people who forget to cash their accounts, shares or dividends out there. You could be one of them.

It’s something that the Government has been looking into for some time and now they have  announced that they are going to take control of genuinely unclaimed funds in dormant accounts (those that haven’t been touched for 15 years or over) to fund various social projects, particularly youth projects.

This means that now more than ever, it’s crucial that you look up that kidsaver account that you haven’t touched since childhood but might have £50 or so in it or any savings and bonds that are ticking away, forgotten in the bank somewhere. So top snoozing and get searching before your dormant account becomes government property (actually you can get hold of the money even after the Government gets its hands on it but better to get hold of it before they do!).

How do you do it?

If you’re not sure about which bank your old account was with or if you’ve got one at all, go to the new website for looking into lost bank and savings accounts Mylostaccount.org.uk. This is a free online search service that will rummage through bank records for you. You have to enter your details and it will tell you if you’ve got any old accounts you’d forgotten about.

Once you get to the website, make sure you put as much information in it as possible, including as many of your old addresses as you can remember. The more info they have the more likely it is that they will find that old savings account your Nan set up for you when you were born.

Once you’ve entered your details, they will be forwarded on to any financial institutons you have specifically mentioned. It also goes to any others in your area to cover all the bases. These institutions will then search all their records and try and locate the accounts, if they exist. The whole process takes around three months.

Lots of banks are taking the initiative into their own hands. They are making efforts to track down their customers with dormant accounts. Already Halifax has helped 7,000 customers find over £17m worth of forgotten funds. they also reckon there is £30m more left to be claimed.

If your bank isn’t going to contact you, you have to get on this site. You wouldn’t throw money away in the street would you? This is your money, all you’ve got to do is track it down.

What if they find my account?

If this search does locate an account you’ve lots, you won’t get your hands on the cash straight away. There will be lots of stringent security checks to make sure you are who you say you are. You will be expected to produce different identity documents – which ones depends on the financial institution.

What happens if you don’t make the deadline?

By law, even though the money in these accounts is being moved, the money remains the property of the account holders. So you will be able to get it back after the deadline. However, it is more complicated, for you and the youth charity that will have spent it. So if you can, it’s better to find it now.

What about pensions, shares and insurance policies?

The free online service is great for bank accounts, however the UAR search is more thorough and will cover life policies and any pensions rights that you may have accrued but forgotten about, but not forgotten bank or building society accounts.  However, their search comes at a price.  The UAR will charge you a standard fee of £18 per search which includes VAT and a 10% contribution to ShareGift.

If you want a thorough search, but you only want to spend time doing it rather than money, there are ways to trace bank accounts with a bit of perseverance.  The UAR recommends you start tracing premium bonds or national savings using National Savings and Premium bonds online or by phoning +44 (0)845 964 5000.  Occupational pensions can be traced using the Pensions tracing service online or by phoning +44 (0) 845 600 2537 and asking for tracing request form.  You can also try the Pensions Schemes Register, which can usually trace what happened to the assets and where thery are now, as long as you have the original name of the company with which you had the pension.  You can contact them on +44 (0)1273 627 600 or go to their website.

If you want to trace insurance policies or investment bonds that have got lost in corporate take-overs or even gone bankrupt (yes, there still might be assets in this case), the Association of British Insurers runs a free search programme on their website as long as you know at least the name of the original insurer that you took the policy out with.na

The Association of Investment Trust Companies and the Investment Management Association cover both unit trusts and open-ended investment companies and have their own free registers and helplines to assist you in tracking down your investments.  Just visit their websites and use their search engines.

shares and bonds will not be worth selling, as the commission is larger than the value of the bonds and shares.  If this is the case for you, or if you simply feel you don’t really need them, you can give them to ShareGift.  ShareGift specialises in collecting your small shareholdings that may cost more to sell than they are worth and pools them until there are enough to sell.  The proceeds of the sale are then added to the funds that ShareGift gives to charities.

NEW! Money from your utilities

News from Ofcom just in (October 2010) is that you could be missing out on free money from your last telecoms provider. In fact, Ofcom has gathered data that suggests that over the past two years there have been around 2 million consumers who have left their communications provider, without claiming at least £10 million owed to them.

The money owed could be for having paid for line rental in advance or for promotional credits that you may have been given during your contract.  People often don’t know that they are owed money by their landline, mobile, broadband or pay TV provider.

Of course (!) the different companies have different ways of giving you the money back (if you ask them). So Ofcom has published a really useful guide to show you how to get your refund from the main telecoms companies here.

More free money

While you’re at it, why not grab hold of some other bits of cash lying about in investments, pensions and just plain coins? Here are some ideas:

• If you like to buy lottery tickets (against MoneyMagpie’s advice) and you think you might have won something while you were away, you can check your numbers on their website. However, remember, tickets expire 180 days after the relevant draw.