Friday, March 20, 2020

Hunt the US Treasury for Your Lost Money

Hunt the US Treasury for Your Lost Money Unfortunately, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Treasury Hunt website for finding and claiming lost U.S. Savings Bonds is no longer available. Instead, persons wishing to claim and recover lost, stolen, or destroyed bonds should submit Fiscal Service Form 1048, Claim for Lost, Stolen, or Destroyed United States Savings Bonds. Form 1048, along with instructions are available at https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/sav1048.pdf Filing a Claim for Lost Savings Bonds When filing the Fiscal Service Form 1048, Claim for Lost, Stolen, or Destroyed United States Savings Bonds, the Treasury Department offers the following advice: The serial numbers of all bonds should be listed if available. If a bond’s serial number is unavailable, the following information for each bond being claimed must be provided on the Fiscal Service Form 1048, regardless of the type of ownership for the bond: The month and year the bond was purchased.The bond owner’s first and last name as it appeared on the original bond (plus the owner’s middle name or initial, if it was on the original bond.)The original owner’s street address, city, and state.The bond owner’s Social Security Number (Taxpayer Identification Number) as it appeared on the original bond. To avoid processing delays, the Treasury Department advises that each required Fiscal Service Form 1048, along with any additional documents, should be completed fully and correctly, signed, and certified according to the instructions provided on the form. Options for Successfully Claimed Savings Bonds Once the existence and legal ownership of lost, stolen, or destroyed bonds has been verified by filing the required Fiscal Service Form 1048, owners of the bonds have the following options: For Series EE and I Bonds Cash them.Replace them with a bond in electronic form. For Series HH Bonds Cash themReplace them with paper bonds. For Series E and H Bonds Cash them. More about U.S. Savings Bonds Holders of Series H or HH savings bonds, which pay interest currently, should also check the Treasury Hunt web site to look for interest payments returned to the U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt as undeliverable. The most common cause for a payment to be returned is when a customer changes bank accounts or address and fails to provide new delivery instructions.Series E bonds sold from May of 1941 through November of 1965 earn interest for 40 years. Bonds sold since December of 1965 earn interest for 30 years. So, bonds issued in February of 1961 and earlier have stopped earning interest as have bonds issued between December of 1965 and February of 1971. Savings bonds become undeliverable and are sent to the  U.S. Bureau of the Public Debt  only after financial institution issuing agents or the  Federal Reserve  make several attempts at delivering the bonds to investors. Bonds returned as undeliverable are a tiny fraction of the 45 million bonds sold each year.The Bureau of the Public Debt has a number of employees assigned to a special locator group that finds owners of undeliverable payments and bonds. Each year they locate and deliver several millions of dollars in returned interest payments and thousands of previously undeliverable bonds to their owners. Treasury Hunt adds to the effectiveness, not to mention the fun, of this effort by making it easy for the public to check and see if theyve got a bond or interest payment waiting for them.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

The most missable proofreading errors - Emphasis

The most missable proofreading errors The most missable proofreading errors Last month, we set you a proofreading task. After the results were in, two things became clear. One: you like a challenge. And two: some errors can outfox even the most eagle-eyed of us. Dont let these ones fool you twice. 1. Punctuating around brackets (or, watch where you stick that). It may seem tidier to pop the full stop inside the closing bracket, but only do this when the brackets contain a full sentence. When they contain a mere aside (as above), you need to complete the sentence outside the brackets by putting the punctuation outside too. Do note, though, that asides may include an exclamation mark (heck, yeah!) or question mark if necessary, but these wont replace the closing punctuation outside the brackets (get it?). 2. Make sure you read the big print. Subject lines and headings can contain mistakes too. For some reason, its easy to forget to proofread titles, headings and subject lines. But you can be sure any mistakes left in them will leap off the page at your reader. 3. A mnemonic may be necessary. A touch specific, this one, but the misspelled neccessary was missed by many in the challenge. If you find it tricky to keep track of how many cs and ss you need, remember: it is necessary to have one collar and two socks. 4. Inspect the unexpected. Most of the time we easily recognise mistakes because they clash with what we know is right what were used to seeing. So be wary of and double-check any words youre less familiar with, as the alarm bells arent always there to ring. These may include foreign or Latin words or jargon, or even where to put the apostrophe in an unusual possessive, such as each others. 5. Spell-check is a fair-weather friend. Use it, but dont rely on it. It will happily leave you with such blush-inducing blunders as using your instead of youre, goon instead of go on, lets in place of lets and even an umber of typos rather than a number of typos. A good tip is to keep a written note of these stealth errors (plus any of your own personal blind spots). Have it to hand when youre proofing to make sure you always remain vigilant. And if this has got you in the mood for a challenge, why not have a go at our spelling quiz?