Free money for some Cdns from uncashed govt cheques | General financial discussion | Discussion forum

Thanks Loonie

I saw a similar article yesterday on CTV News ⬇ https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canadians-find-thousands-of-dollars-in-unclaimed-cheques-on-cra-website-1.4832822 .

I checked my CRA account yesterday, and ... No $$$ waiting there for me.

For those who don't have direct access to their CRA account (like me), your CRA account can be accessed via your 'Service Canada' account.

Service Canada Account sign-in link ⬇ https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/my-account.html

According to the CBC article, the "Uncashed Cheques" link is a recent feature of MyAccount and was likely not there on your last visit:

…
In a statement, CRA spokesperson Etienne Biram said this is money that "belongs to Canadians."

"In order to help taxpayers reclaim these long lost funds, we recently soft launched this new feature to let taxpayers know if they have an uncashed cheque with the CRA," Biram said.

…

Biram told CBC News that CRA payments can remain uncashed for a variety of reasons, like someone misplacing a cheque or a change of address.

Government cheques never expire, he said, so the CRA can't void the original cheque and reissue a new one unless requested.

…

I've been reading a lot of stories about this since the cbc article.

I've been trying to understand how so many of these CRA cheques got to be uncashed ...

Norman1 said
Cheque could have been lost in the mail. Could have been misplaced and forgotten by the taxpayer. Could have been deposited but lost during clearing.

One can find similar situations in the Bank of Canada Unclaimed Balances site.

For example, I searched for "Bank" and found a $10,000 draft from the Royal Bank, payable to "A KHAN/STANDARD CHART BANK". The bank draft was issued on February 18, 1999 and still has not been submitted to the Royal Bank for settlement.

For bank accounts, people can sometimes forget about them. I searched for "Jane Doe" and found an $801.09 Tangerine savings account for "Janet E Doering" of Burlington, ON that had not been active since March 2005. If anyone knows her, she may be quite happy to find she still has $801.09 in a forgotten Tangerine account!  

Yep...I can't say I really noticed the uncashed government of cheques feature before, but I'm glad it's there. It's easy for them to track since it's all tied to our social insurance numbers and, since government of Canada cheques don't stale date, it's possible for them easily reconcile the uncashed cheques with the recipients. Moreover, those who are registered for My Account, which is the easiest way to sign up for direct deposit, but who haven't yet signed up for direct deposit (~85% of Canadians and businesses, as at 2014, had signed up for direct deposit of Government of Canada payments) can easily check for outstanding payments. I would wager to say if you've signed up for direct deposit of your CRA payments, you won't find any uncashed government of Canada cheques in your name. So, this is actually a good strategy for getting the remaining ~10% of Canadians to sign up for direct deposit. 😉

Also, regarding the Bank of Canada Unclaimed Balances site, if you have had, or have, an account with a B.C. credit union or a former B.C. credit union (i.e., Coast Capital Savings), be sure to check out the B.C. Unclaimed Property Society's website, https://unclaimedpropertybc.ca.

Dean, I'm not sure if your last name is 'Selkirk,' but I searched that site for 'selkirk' and found two corporations and a 'Blaine Selkirk'. 😉

Currently out of scope of provincial unclaimed property legislation is provincially-regulated mutual fund dealers, which can, but are not required to, transmit unclaimed accounts to the provincial unclaimed property administrators.

Cheers,
Doug

Vatox said
Just checked my account and one cheque is listed.
So I’ll have to file for a duplicate and I have now switched everything to direct deposit.  

See? What'd I tell you...this is an ingenious ploy by the CRA and government of Canada to migrate that last leg of Canadians to direct deposit, without actually making it mandatory (which they could certainly do, without any legislative amendments).

Cheers,
Doug

Vatox said
Sounds about right Doug. I never bothered to change to direct deposit before because I get so few cheques from them. I have never missed cashing a cheque before, so it’s way too convenient that I have suddenly slipped one. Its from last year too.

Edit: the process to get my duplicate cheque is a pain and that’s why I switched to direct deposit.  

Yeah, I'm surprised they still made you fill out a form. I thought by having that online tool, upon your signing up for direct deposit, they could have an online form for you to deposit any past outstanding cheques electronically to your new direct deposit-linked bank account. Should you cash the outstanding cheque, the government of Canada most certainly has powerful recourse in that they can debit your My Account and collect it next year when you file your income tax return. If that failed, they could add a Requirement to Pay to your Canadian bank accounts, thereby blocking all debit transactions from your accounts. 😉

Cheers,
Doug

Vatox said
The location for direct deposit is very conveniently located. Lol

Right at the top and highlighted.  

Oh okay, well at least they let you generate a printable indemnity form to sign and submit online through My Account. So, that's good.

Cheers,
Doug