Missing money? Your county treasurer might have it. Here's how to find it.

If you ever want to feel like a member of the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol, try cold-calling someone whose name appears on a county treasurer's uncashed check registry to tell them they are owed a few thousand dollars that they didn't know about.

Glen Ellyn's Tim Peiffle certainly wasn't expecting such a call.

"You're like a guardian angel," he said. "I have no idea why I'd have this money coming to me."

Others were just as pleased.

"I kind of knew about it because I'd gotten a couple letters from lawyers, but I thought it was spam," said Ken Langen, a former Naperville resident now living in Montana. "I think the lawyers wanted 10% or something for finding it."

"I was contacted about a potential uncashed check but was unable to find it in my online search," Beth Harbauer, business manager at St. Joseph Parish in Downers Grove, wrote in an email after being notified. "I'm grateful for your diligence in discovering this and contacting our church."

Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being held by suburban county treasurers as unclaimed property, but finding out if you're entitled to any of it is harder in some counties than others.

"We do send a letter out to the last known address we have," said DuPage County Treasurer Gwen Henry. "We also maintain and update the searchable list on our website every month."

Many amounts are around $20 and were compensation for jury duty. But there are also much larger amounts owed from property tax refunds, court verdicts or other county business.

Currently, the list at Henry's office is 3,005 entries long with a combined value of $360,459. It is accessible by clicking on the "uncashed checks" link on the left side of the treasurer's homepage at dupagecounty.gov/elected_officials/treasurer.

Kane County Treasurer Chris Lauzen's website, treasurer.kanecountyil.gov, also has a searchable list showing who is owed a portion of the $63,631 being held there.

In Cook County, Treasurer Maria Pappas has a website devoted to unclaimed funds, where users can search by name, address or property identification number. Visitors have to submit an email address to get an access code, but officials there say the extra hoops are intended to cut down on "spam and bots." The "uncashed check search" link is on Pappas' homepage, cookcountytreasurer.com, under the "Refunds" header at the bottom of the page.

Will County Treasurer Tim Brophy's list of 262 uncashed checks with a combined value of more than $200,000 isn't as easy to find from his homepage as others. There's no link or directions guiding visitors to the file at his website with a lengthy address, willcounty.gov/County-Offices/Finance-and-Revenue/Treasurer-Office. To find the list, users have to click on any of the tabs under the "I want to go to ..." header and then scroll down the right side of the new screen for a link to "uncashed unclaimed funds." Luckily, it is searchable.

You won't be as lucky looking for online lists with the treasurers in Lake and McHenry counties, though. They're not available digitally.

Anyone interested in the lists can file a Freedom of Information Act request. But officials in the Lake County treasurer's office are keen to post the list online after learning so many of their counterparts do.

"It is a great idea that lessens the administrative burden of regularly occurring FOIA requests," said Stephen Gray, Lake County chief deputy treasurer. "Additionally, this is an added benefit to county residents who may not be aware of funds owed back to them."

For treasurers who do keep lists online, they also have forms available for anyone owed money to fill out and request new checks. Most forms require some verification documentation and likely have to be notarized.

The checks were either sent to the wrong address and returned or never processed, treasurers say. The checks become void after three months, according to county officials.

"We get people all the time who come in and say they found a check in a drawer they didn't cash from a year or two ago and ask if we can issue a new one," Henry said. "We do."

But it's not just residents who are on these lists. Churches, banks, law firms, real estate companies and a multitude of other businesses are owed money, according to the reports.

That also includes other government bodies. Naperville city officials were unaware Henry's office was holding onto $2,350 owed to the city dating back to 2021, likely because the checks were mislabeled "Naperville Municipal Center."

"We did not know we had some checks sitting out there," said Linda LaCloche, Naperville's communications director. "We're going to contact DuPage County to collect our uncashed checks and put them right into the general fund."

But the money in the county treasurers' coffers is there only for three years. By the end of next month, most treasurers will have purged any unclaimed cash older than three years from their lists and transferred it to State Treasurer Michael Frerichs, which is required by law.

Once in Frerichs' custody, the cash may be easier to access. Where most county treasurers don't have staff dedicated to reuniting lost money with owners, the state treasurer devotes 40% of its staff to the unclaimed property fund, which is currently holding onto about $5 billion.

The treasurer's unclaimed property website, icash.illinoistreasurer.gov, is also easier to navigate than most county sites, and claiming the cash is often simpler, particularly smaller amounts. Submitting a claim can be done online in most instances.

"Three out of every four claims last year was fully automated," said Allen Mayer, the treasurer's chief of staff. "The one thing we're super proud of that we started in 2018 and enhanced this year is the 'Money Match' program."

Money Match cross-checks other state databases to help locate an individual owed money, even if that person isn't actively looking for it. Anyone owed less than $5,000 could automatically receive checks from Frerichs' office if the contact information matches and is confirmed.

Mayer said the program is expected to distribute $47 million to more than 66,000 individuals this year.

Mayer said the unclaimed property division is dogged in its determination to connect people with unclaimed funds, which isn't always easy.

He told a story about a woman who had taken custody of a friend's two disabled children after the friend died in a crash. The woman didn't believe Frerichs' staff when they called multiple times to tell her about a life insurance policy in excess of $100,000 available to the children.

It wasn't until the woman called the state treasurer's office to report what she believed was a fraud that she learned the truth.

"Treasurer Frerichs likes to talk about how he gets to play Santa Claus 365 days a year, but one of the hardest parts is actually convincing people this is not a scam," Mayer said.

During the state's last fiscal year, which ended June 30, the treasurer's office distributed $253 million in unclaimed property back to the rightful recipients, Mayer said, from more than 203,000 claims.