Lost War Bonds Not Easy To Find

MATT GOURAS

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Holders of lost savings bonds dating back to World War II say its not nearly as easy to track down the lost money as the U.S. Treasury Department claims in an ongoing lawsuit.

The Bureau of the Public Debt counters that its process aims to make sure that only the legal owners of the old bonds are able to redeem them. Demanding requirements — which can include the Social Security number of long-dead original purchasers for a gift bond — are in place to make sure the money ends up in the right place, the agency said.

Anne Adams of Nashville, Tenn., doesn't believe it.

She has spent months trying to recover lost bonds for her daughter and her husband. In both cases, she said the Treasury Department threw up insurmountable roadblocks to recovering the money.

Her husband served in the Marines during the Vietnam War, she said, and had a large portion of his paycheck automatically sent into savings bonds. Adams said the Treasury Ddepartment required copies of the original paycheck stubs in order to track down the lost bonds. The family had no way of getting the old paystubs from the Marines.