Showing posts with label Money. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Money. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

'Take the Money and Run': Someone actually cracks under the fake pressure


So the premise of "Take the Money and Run" is that a pair of people get a briefcase with $100,000 inside. They have an hour to hide it anywhere in their city. Then some real investigators have 48 hours to find the money.

If they find it, the investigators keep it. If it stays hidden, the pair keeps it. The rules of the investigation are that the investigators get access to the pair's cellphones, any receipts they acquire during the hiding period and the GPS coordinates from their vehicle.

The premiere pair were the Bustamante brothers Raul and Paul in San Francisco. They drove around to a bunch of locations, called a variety of people as decoys and ultimately buried the briefcase in Lafayette Park.

After the hide the money, the investigators treat this as a real investigation, which actually surprises me. They decide that Raul is the Alpha and Paul is the weak link, which turns out to be totally true. Paul is a terrible, terrible liar and he's getting so nervous. Dude, relax! This isn't real.

Then the investigators call the guys' mom and she just gives up the third brother's address. The investigator straight-up says, "Paul and Raul can't come to the phone, I'm calling for them. They want to go visit their brother Rob for his birthday, but they don't know his address" and she just gives it up. You're a fortress, mom. Well done.

Meanwhile, the other investigators are playing Paul like a violin. He's a weak-ass mama's boy and he is crumbling on the fake heist TV show. Nut up, dude! Get it together. Seriously, I hope this guy watches this and feels deeply shamed.

He absolutely cracks under the "pressure" because he "wants to go home." It's 48 HOURS! For $100,000! And you have like 18 hours left! What is wrong with this guy? He now straight-up just tells them where the case is. W.T.F.?!

This is embarrassing. The investigators find the case with 17 hours to go. Because stupid Paul gave them up so he could go back to his mama's house.

New Jersey Reaches Out to Unclaimed Money Owners


More that 1.3 million residents of New Jersey have unclaimed money which is still waiting to be claimed. A WCBS news report says 200,000 Garden State dwellers have NJ unclaimed money from property tax refunds worth a whopping $200 million. This is quite startling considering the fact that the New Jersey residents pay some of the highest property taxes in the country, as much as twice the amount paid by residents in the other states.

The government is trying all the ways in order to unite the owners of the lost funds with their unclaimed money. It is trying to reach out to the New Jersey unclaimed money owners through every available media outlet and through various campaigns which are run through the print media, state sponsored fair and through the electronic media.

Aside from tax rebates, New Jersey unclaimed money comes from comes from numerous other sources like forgotten bank accounts, uncashed salary checks, insurance benefits, stocks and bonds that have been languishing, unused gift checks, and even items from abandoned safe deposit boxes. New Jersey is also home to a lot of foreign and immigrant workers. This diverse workforce usually work on numerous jobs and have had several addresses and they tend to lose track of mailed checks or notices from banks and financial institutions.

Businesses and companies that haven’t located the owners of lost money and property after a ‘dormancy period’ have to hand the the unclaimed money over to the State for ‘safekeeping’ as stipulated in the National Unclaimed Property Law. The citizens’ lost money is kept in the State Treasury until the rightful owners come around to file a claim. The State also holds outreach programs to try to let people know about New Jersey unclaimed funds. Last year, the NJ State Treasury unclaimed property advertising campaign reunited some 36,000 residents with $85 million of their missing money.

Considering the economic slump the country is passing through, the unclaimed funds worth more than $40 billion lying in states is a big drain on the government, considering the fact that they have to be maintained and safe guarded unless the owners of these funds are found. Fact is, not enough people are checking for unclaimed funds because most Americans aren’t even aware they might have state unclaimed property in their name.