Good article on FAB 2014-01

[austin3515]

http://www.employeebenefitslawreport.com/2014/08/dol-updates-missing-participant-guidance/

Does anyone know which "free websites" in particular the DOL has in mind?

[MoJo]

LinkedIn, Facebook, Switchboard, and others.

[austin3515]

I thought of that but it seems like too many false positives, especially if you have no means of recognizing their photo...

I can't understand why they don't have something where you upload a spreadsheet of names and socials, and the IRS sends to the address of record a letter saying hey "Austin Powers and Company Inc. has money held in your account so you should call them." They could charge $10 a pop and even make a little money.

It seems obvious to me that the IRS has the best database bar none for this task. Why are they not using the best tool to solve a huge industry (and national) problem?

[MoJo]

Agreed on the IRS - but alas, no more. There are pay services as well. I've used Intellius.com with some success. Of course, Berwin, Inspira, and others will do it as well.

What amazes me is that people leave money on the table, and even when notified, don't collect it. I had an abandoned plan with $500k spread over ONLY 9 participants. I found 7 of them, and only 2 took the money. The rest - rolled over to ETrade IRAs where they will escheat at some point in time.

p.s. I don't think ETrade will take such rollovers anymore - but Inspira will.

[austin3515]

We use PenChecks, and my understanding is that PenChecks will due their own search for them after they receive the money. We use LocatePlus which was cheap (important because we wanted to avoid having to bill clients to do this). They're like $25 a month for 12 searches or something. We've had decent success.

[MoJo]

I've used Penchecks as well. People I trust have said Penchecks is easier for a handful of searches at a time, Inspira is better if you have a lot of searches to do (plan termination, etc.).

[austin3515]

I meant for the IRA's, but I do know that they will do the skip tracing stuff too, but have not tried it as of yet. Others have mentioned Intellus so I need to check them out too...