The shares were originally purchased through an actual stock broker in
town. They went out of business probably 15-20 years ago. About four
years ago, I received contact from a company called Computershare
claiming they had been put in charge of shares of technology companies
that had not been claimed or updated. My parents have probably moved six
times during the last 29 years, so any mail was being bounced back.
We filled out their required paper application (along with a notary
signature) and sent it back to them. I never heard anything more, and
honestly figured it was a scam of some type. I made attempts over the
last few years to contact them (via the telephone number on the form),
but it was always voicemail and I never got a call back. I tried their
website many times as well, but without knowing an account number, I was
never able to login to their online system.
Today when I checked, they had a new feature to request your account
number if you could provide all kinds of personal information... so
after a few guesses (like zip code, etc), I was finally able to get into
the account.
Travis
On 9/8/2016 3:40 PM, Josh Luthman wrote:
That's a very interesting give from your parents, for sure.
Definitely worked out to say the least.
Why did it take years to get access to it?
Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340
Direct: 937-552-2343
1100 Wayne St
Suite 1337
Troy, OH 45373
On Thu, Sep 8, 2016 at 5:37 PM, Travis Johnson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi,
So today, I was finally able to login to a brokerage account that
was setup by my parents in 1987. They had given me four shares of
Apple stock for my birthday, but because I was a minor, they had
to be put under one of my parent's names as well. I think they
spent about $200 for the shares at that time.
I logged in to the account (that has literally taken me YEARS to
get access to) and discovered I now have $8,800 worth of Apple
stock. It was a great surprise, and the bonus was the $670 worth
of dividend checks that were just sitting in the account because
they didn't have a current address.
Doing some quick math, that works out to about 13% interest over
the last 29 years. Apple just paid for my new iPhone 7. :)
Travis
