[zharknado]

Reminds me a bit of the gentleman who didn’t check his AMZN stock for ~20 years and found out it had gone to escheat with the state of Delaware. They had cashed it out years earlier for less than 10% of its present-day value. His play is to hope the hypothetical value continues to grow to the point that a specialist attorney will take the case and split the spoils with his kids.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/799345159

[tasuki]

What should one do so their stock shares do not magically disappear like this?

[zharknado]

The main thing is logging into your brokerage account(s) at least once a year so the custodian knows you’re still active. Laws vary by state but a sounds like it’s often 4+ years of no contact/activity before they have transfer it to the gov’t.

More broadly, you can lobby your representatives to require stricter criteria to be met before assets can be escheated in your jurisdiction. E.g. phone calls, multiple pieces of physical mail or have mail returned as invalid address in addition to the basic timeout period.

[tasuki]

Thank you. The problem is the custodian who makes me scared is not in my jurisdiction, but rather in the US...