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Windfall:\u00a0Clare Rand discovered that she had \u00a3360 of Santander shares<\/p>\n
Former customers of demutualised insurers and building societies are being reunited with windfall shares they had long forgotten about.<\/p>\n
Companies are now appointing ‘detectives’ to track them down.<\/p>\n
Clare Rand, from Hertford, is among those who have received a pleasant surprise out of the blue.<\/p>\n
She was told she owns Santander shares currently worth \u00a3360, and is entitled to missed dividends totalling \u00a347.<\/p>\n
It was not until a letter arrived at her mother’s home in the Scottish Highlands that she learned about the forgotten investment.<\/p>\n
The letter, from a company called ProSearch, informed her that it had been appointed by a ‘major corporation’ to locate her ‘in connection with unclaimed entitlements’.<\/p>\n
At first Clare, who works in the media industry, was suspicious.<\/p>\n
She says: ‘I thought it was yet another scam and that someone was trying to get hold of my personal details so they could defraud me.’<\/p>\n
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The good news was that ProSearch is legitimate and is used by many companies to trace either lost customers or shareholders. But it does take a portion of the forgotten cash it tracks down as a fee.<\/p>\n
Clare turned to The Mail on Sunday for help. We soon established the forgotten shares were with Santander.<\/p>\n
Clare says: ‘I remember receiving 250 shares in the building society Alliance & Leicester when it floated on the stock market in 1997.<\/p>\n
‘But ten years ago it was taken over by Santander and I just assumed the shares vanished at that point. Then I moved house and I forgot about them.’\u00a0<\/p>\n
Instead of responding to ProSearch, The Mail on Sunday advised Clare to contact Santander’s share registrar Equiniti.<\/p>\n
It confirmed she owned shares worth \u00a3360. That is not as much as the \u00a33,000 they were worth before the Santander takeover, but a nice windfall all the same.<\/p>\n
Normally, Equiniti levies a charge for reissuing dividend cheques but it agreed to waive them for Clare’s \u00a347 missed income.<\/p>\n
Clare says: ‘I cannot complain as I did not even remember that I had the shares until ProSearch came along. Thankfully, the letter turned out to be a nice surprise and not a scam as I first thought.’<\/p>\n
If you believe you have shares with Santander following the Alliance & Leicester takeover but have lost contact with them, speak to Equiniti on 0371 384 2000 stating your name, date of birth and address.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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