US Unclaimed Property Scraper

Search unclaimed money and uncashed checks held by US government treasuries across multiple states — search by owner/payee name or browse a state's register. Amounts, holder (the government body holding the money), property type, and dates included wherever the source discloses them. Pure HTTP, no auth, no proxy, no CAPTCHA.

What this actor does

• Two modes: search (owner name) and browse (list a state's register)
• 6 states covered, 9 government sources: California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Texas
• Multi-state in one run — set state to ALL to search every source at once
• Jurisdiction filter — narrow to one specific government source (useful when a state has more than one, e.g. California or Massachusetts)
• Sorting — highest/lowest amount, most/least recent, or source order
• Minimum- and maximum-amount filters to bracket a balance range
• Empty fields are omitted — a source is never forced to report a field it doesn't disclose

Data source

This actor aggregates public, unauthenticated Socrata (SODA) open-data APIs published directly by 9 US county/city treasuries as their official unclaimed-funds / uncashed-check registers:

State	Jurisdiction	Property type
California	Marin County	Uncashed county checks
California	City of Roseville	Stale-dated municipal checks
Maryland	Montgomery County	Unclaimed vendor payments
Massachusetts	Town of Framingham	Unclaimed payroll checks
Massachusetts	Town of Framingham	Unclaimed resident/vendor/AP checks
Minnesota	Ramsey County	Unclaimed money
Rhode Island	City of Providence	Uncashed municipal checks
Texas	City of Austin	Unclaimed property
Texas	City of Corpus Christi	Unclaimed property

Why not a state-level Treasury / MissingMoney.com? We researched this thoroughly before building. The obvious "one-stop" target — MissingMoney.com, the NAUPA-endorsed multi-state search — is blocked behind three layered anti-bot systems (a Cloudflare Turnstile challenge injected into every page, AWS WAF Bot Control 403s, and a __cf_bm bot-detection cookie); this holds for plain HTTP clients, TLS-impersonating clients, and full headless browsers alike. The same problem exists further down the list: FDIC's national unclaimed-funds search requires a validated Google reCAPTCHA token; PBGC's pension search requires the claimant's own Social Security number; Texas's own state-level open-data unclaimed-property dataset returns 403 to anonymous requests and requires emailing the Comptroller's office for an access grant. In short, every state's live name-search portal is CAPTCHA/WAF-gated — that's exactly why third-party "finder" sites merely deep-link into those portals instead of scraping them.

What is reliably open is the layer beneath the search UI: many county and city treasuries publish their own unclaimed-funds ledgers as public Socrata datasets with anonymous API access (no key, no login, no CAPTCHA) — the same open-data infrastructure many US cities use for budgets, permits, and 311 data. This actor aggregates 9 such datasets across 6 states into a single multi-state search/browse tool. It complements, and does not duplicate, this repo's CAUnclaimedPropertyScraper (which is single-state, sourced from the California State Controller's own bulk CSV export of its statewide database — a different tier of source entirely).

Output per record

Field	Description
ownerName	Owner/payee name on the unclaimed funds
amountUsd	Dollar amount, where the source discloses one
reportedDate	Check/transaction date (YYYY-MM-DD), where disclosed
address	Last-known street address, where disclosed (joins multi-line addresses, e.g. Providence's suite/floor lines, into one string)
city	City, where disclosed
postalCode	ZIP code, where disclosed
recordId	Source's own record/check ID, where disclosed
vendorId	Source's own vendor/payee ID, where disclosed — currently only Montgomery County, MD
invoiceDate	Underlying invoice date (YYYY-MM-DD), where disclosed separately from reportedDate — currently only Montgomery County, MD
state	2-letter state code
jurisdiction	The specific county/city government holding the funds
holderName	Same as jurisdiction — the entity holding the money
propertyType	Category, e.g. "Unclaimed Vendor Payment (County)"
paymentStatus	Bank/ERP status of the payment (e.g. "Negotiable", "Void"), where disclosed — currently only Montgomery County, MD
sourceUrl	The government's own open-data page for this dataset
recordType	Always "unclaimedProperty"
scrapedAt	UTC timestamp of the scrape

Not every jurisdiction discloses every field — e.g. the City of Austin's dataset lists owner names only, with no amount or date. Fields that aren't disclosed are simply omitted, never faked.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	select	search	search (by owner name) or browse (no name filter)
state	select	MN	ALL, CA, MA, MD, MN, RI, or TX
jurisdiction	select	ALL	Narrow to one specific government source's dataset (e.g. just Marin County, not all of CA)
ownerName	string	Johnson	Required for mode=search; case-insensitive substring match
minAmountUsd	int	0	Only include records at least this large (where amount is disclosed)
maxAmountUsd	int	unset	Only include records at most this large (where amount is disclosed)
sortBy	select	amountDesc	amountDesc / amountAsc / dateDesc / dateAsc / relevance
maxItems	int	20	Hard cap on emitted records (1–1000)

Example: search by name across all states

{
  "mode": "search",
  "state": "ALL",
  "ownerName": "Smith",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Example: browse California's highest-value unclaimed funds

{
  "mode": "browse",
  "state": "CA",
  "sortBy": "amountDesc",
  "minAmountUsd": 1000,
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example: recent unclaimed payroll checks in Massachusetts

{
  "mode": "browse",
  "state": "MA",
  "sortBy": "dateDesc",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Use cases

• Asset-recovery researchers — screen multiple states' unclaimed-funds ledgers by name in one run
• Genealogy / heir-search firms — sweep county-level registers for a family surname
• Finance / fraud investigators — cross-reference vendor payment records with known entities
• Local journalism — surface large uncashed municipal payments for public-interest reporting
• Personal finance tools — let users check multiple jurisdictions for money owed to them

FAQ

Does this cover my state's full unclaimed-property database? No — this actor covers county/city government ledgers that publish open Socrata data, not each state's complete Treasury database (those require going through the state's own CAPTCHA-protected search, which this project does not bypass). For California specifically, see this repo's separate CAUnclaimedPropertyScraper, sourced from the CA State Controller's full statewide bulk CSV export.

Why is amountUsd missing on some records? The source jurisdiction (currently only the City of Austin, TX) publishes owner names without a disclosed dollar amount. We never fabricate a placeholder value — the field is simply omitted.

What does paymentStatus mean? Montgomery County, MD is the only jurisdiction that discloses this — it's the bank/ERP status of the payment (e.g. "Negotiable" means the check can still be cashed; "Void" or "Reconciled" means it can't). No other source in this actor publishes an equivalent field.

How do I claim money I find? This actor surfaces public record data only; it does not file claims. Contact the jurisdiction/holderName government office directly, or visit the sourceUrl dataset page for the office's own contact information.

How often is the underlying data refreshed? Each government body refreshes its own Socrata dataset on its own schedule (typically daily-to-monthly); the actor always queries the live API, so results reflect whatever is currently published.

Can I search all 6 states in a single run? Yes — set state to ALL; the actor queries all 9 sources concurrently and merges/sorts the results.