Hank Investigates: Savings Bonds

Inside the gray metal drawers of these hundreds of government filing cabinets are thousands of rolls of microfilm containing millions of names, names of people across the United States who don't know it yet, but who have a lot of money coming to them.

How much money are we talking about here?

John Swales, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Public Debt
"$8 billion."

You heard right: $8 billion. And according to the U.S. Bureau of Public Debt, some of it may be yours.

John Swales
"It's not ours and we want to give it back."

The money started piling up in the thirties and forties, when President Roosevelt needed to finance his New Deal programs, and later World War II.

His solution was selling US savings bonds. With bonds, people could loan money to the government, and years later when the bonds matured, get the money back with interest.

For decades, every popular icon from Bing to Bugs pitched bonds as a safe investment.

It worked so well that many baby boom kids, hoping for birthday toys were disappointed when well-meaning relatives gave them savings bonds instead.

Scott Freeman
"It wasn't cash so I couldn't spend it."

Scott Freeman for instance, at age 5 or so, was bummed when his Grandma Mary started giving him bonds.

Scott Freeman
"And it wasn't a toy so I couldn't play with it, so I pretty much, at that time, found them useless."

So, like thousands of other Americans, Scott just stuck his birthday bonds in a drawer. Like thousands of others, Scott's bonds earned interest and grew in value. But, like thousands of others, he totally forgot about them.

Scott Freeman
"I couldn't use them for 10 or 20 years anyway."

As a result, inside these drawers there are now records of 21 million bond sales like the ones to Scott's Grandma. Every one of them is now ready to be cashed in.

With such a jackpot in store, the Feds can only wonder what people are waiting for.

John Swales
"In some cases it may be that the rainy day they were saving for never came, in other cases it may be they don't know where they are, in other cases it may be that they weren't aware they even had them or had forgotten about them."

Here's the key: the bonds do increase in value for 30 years or so, but after that, they stop earning interest. The Feds say its silly to hang on to those now.

Are these bonds getting more valuable?

John Swales
"No, they're not getting more valuable. They've stopped growing in value."

So now, inside the Bureau of Public Debt in Parkersburg, West Virginia, is a government team on a mission, a mission to get people the money they're owed.

Investigators are now scouring through microfilm to find mature bonds, then plugging purchaser's names into people finders. They're searching out people who may have a stash of forgotten savings, and encouraging them to cash in their bonds.

Donna Monroe, Bureau of Public Debt
"I had a lady one time tell me she was going to get her bonds go to the bank and cash them and she was going to take a cruise."

The problem is that bond holders are hard to find. The sales records are incredibly complicated. Crumbling old ledger books had to be transferred to microfilm, and even that system is just kept chronologically by the date of sale, not by who owns what.

What's more, addresses may be decades old and officials can't just publish the names they're looking for.

Why not?

John Swales
"The privacy act of 1974 requires that we protect the records that pertain to indentifiable individuals."

But somewhere in these files searchers found Scott's info, and that's why he got a phone call.

So they told you had secret savings?

Scott Freeman
"Yes, so secret I didn't even know about it."

Turns out he had 19 bonds, now worth more than $5000.

This is a lot of money

Scott Freeman
"You're telling me, it's a lot of money!"

And if Scott's jackpot makes you think, "Wait, I used to have some of those," officials say don't just wait for your phone to ring.

John Swales
"If you think you you've got bonds stashed away in a box somewhere you'd better go find them because you'll find hidden treasure."

Here's why: bonds may actually wind up worth 10 times their face value. So if you think you've got some, write to the Bureau of Public Debt in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

You can also log on to SavingsBonds.gov for more information.