Unclaimed Money from the Bank

Most of the bank in Malaysia has the system that if you have an account with one of the bank and there is no transaction for a certain number of years, then they are going to close the account and the money is going to be placed under the unclaimed government fund. That's what it called if I am not mistaken. They said they follow the British banking system.

It happened to me. When I studied in KL, I opened up an account with HSBC. Year 2001 was the last year I did transaction and I still have some money in the account. I didn't close the account since I thought that KL - Medan is quite near and my account will still remain in there. A few years later, when I had chance to go back to KL again, I tried to get the money from the ATM, but I couldn't; instead the machine swallowed my card. I went to find the customer service and they said they are going to help me with that. Yes, they helped me to file in and wrote complaint letter. Since I have not much day left in KL, thus I just contacted them through email.

When I came back, I tried to keep in touch with them. However, there were not much changes. I still didn't know what happened to my account balance. A couple of years later, I visited KL again and went to the HSBC at BukitBintang. Apparently, the officers that handle my case already quit. Me and Mr. waited there for quite a few hours with no results. The only word from them was they will try to help me to go through things and find where is my money right now. I have all my account number, and they couldn't track it as they said it has been deleted from the system.

I thought I have already lost the money. Back in Medan, my in-law has an account in HSBC Medan, so I kinda tried to force the employee in HSBC Medan to contact with those people in KL. Finally after months of processing, they sent my money back. The Maybank sent a bank draft directly to my house. I had to go to BNI and it costs RP 50.000 for the processing fee and it took 1 hour waiting time... Geez.. and I were late for my 10 o'clock class... :(

The good news is, I have my money back.. ^^
My point of sharing is to let you know that you can actually claim your money back if you have similar case...