A Lot of States Owe Atari's Shambling Husk Money (Exploring Unclaimed Property)

[DavidD]

So, I've been playing with the California Unclaimed Property website and made some interesting discoveries:

• Atari (at Borregas Ave, Sunnyvale) is owed about $1,000 by the state of Texas, and similar amounts from a variety of other states.
• Atari Corp of Milpitas and San Jose are owed about $10,000 between the Fireman's Insurance Fund and Autodesk.
• Atari Games is only owed about $2,000 by a variety of sources.
• "Atari Hal" is owed 30 cents by Facebook payments.  This seems odd to me.
• "Atari Special Program" was owed $1400 by Eastman Kodak.  I wonder what this was for...
• There is/was some place called "Atari Dollar World" in Elk Grove, CA -- it is owed about $24.

Now, I know -- none of this is big money, but I'm a bit surprised that none of the companies that bought/sold Atari over the years ever collected their unused cash from the state of California.

 

Other exciting tidbits:

• Antic Software had $378 in a Wells Fargo account that was never claimed...
• Sierra Online is due more than $5,000 from AT&T
• Broderbund is owed $9,000 by Detroit Public Schools... and $10,000 from Pearson Education (big textbook company).

 

I wonder what's the smallest defunct company one could buy with profitable amounts of unclaimed funds...

 

(All of these searches indicate funds the state of California is holding, ready for claim by the owner of the aforementioned companies, and all from at least three years ago.  California residents are highly encouraged to check for their own missing property at https://ucpi.sco.ca.gov/ucp/Default.aspx )

[+jgkspsx]

Brøderbund’s payments from Detroit Public Schools and Pearson are owed in California? Weird.

[DavidD]

5 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Brøderbund’s payments from Detroit Public Schools and Pearson are owed in California? Weird.

I assume payment was sent, something weird happened, and payments were forwarded to the state of California.  In theory, all of these indicate that the payer was unable to contact the payee for some reason, and payment was sent to the CA unclaimed property department -- or in a California bank account that was never accessed.

[Doctor X]

I'd like to know why the heck the Fireman's Insurance Fund owed money to Atari!

[DavidD]

37 minutes ago, Doctor X said:

I'd like to know why the heck the Fireman's Insurance Fund owed money to Atari!

It's an insurance company -- I'd assume Atari was due a refund, possibly due to closing down a physical building that they had paid ahead on?