‘Treasury Hunt’ Can Help Locate Bonds

Can’t remember whether your U.S. savings bond has matured? Can’t find it? Missing an interest payment?

The Treasury Department announced Monday a new link on its savings bond Web site, dubbed “Treasury Hunt,” to help people find missing bonds and interest payments and learn whether their bonds have matured.

Rather than writing the government to find out, investors canconduct a database search at https://www.savingsbonds.gov by clicking on the “Treasury Hunt” link and providing their name, city, state and Social Security number. The secured site lets them know whether a match is found and how to obtain the lost bond or payment.

The database, which will be regularly updated, has information on bonds and interest payments that couldn’t be delivered and bonds that matured but haven’t been redeemed.

Bonds are deemed undeliverable only after the issuing financial institution or the Federal Reserve has made several attempts to deliver them. These bonds represent a tiny fraction of the 45 million bonds sold each year, the Bureau of Public Debt said.

The most common cause for an interest payment to be returned is when an investor moves or changes bank accounts and doesn’t give the government new delivery instructions, the bureau said.

Roughly 20 million savings bonds, worth $8 billion, have matured. Though owners usually know where those bonds are, they often don’t realize they have stopped earning interest, the bureau said.