So about a year ago, having paid off all my debt and being in decent financial shape, I opened a savings account specifically as an emergency fund, should I get laid off as I have in the past. I put about $3,000 in there.

And I haven't touched it for a year.

I get this letter from my bank (Bank One) yesterday:

Immediate response requested:

At Bank One, we appreciate your business and understand that many customers prefer not to conduct frequent transactions on their bank accounts. It is important to recognize, however, that state law requires that account balances be surrendered to the state if the account has not been used for an extended period of time. Fortunately, it is very easy to keep this from occurring and we will help you take care of it.

Here is all you need to do: Just make a deposit or withdrawal with your signature in the next 60 days, or simply sign and return this letter as acknowledgement of your account, and your account will continue to be classified as active. You do not need to do anything else, and this will help ensure that you are not inconvenienced by restrictions or limitations in conducting ATM or online banking transactions.

Please act now: Without any activitiy or communication, your account will be classified as "dormant" within 60 days from the date of this letter. Should your account become dormant, it will not immediately be surrendered to the state, but we strongly encourage you to act today.

You can trust us to keep your money safe: Whenever you have an account which you have ceased using on an active basis and is in danger of becoming dormant, we will contact you to remind you to activate it and keep it safe. If you would like to combine it with another account, just stop by your banking center or call us and we would be glad to help you.

Please call your banking center, or our telephone bankers at 1-888-871-3450, if you have any questions. We are here to help you with any of your financial questions.

Thank you for banking at Bank One.

Okay, so this letter pissed me off. First off, I should be able to put some money in a savings account and not touch it for as long as I don't want to without it being threatened with being surrendered to the state.

I'm wondering if this is even really a state law, and if I find out Bank One is jerking around with me because they simply want me to use my account more I'm switching banks. If it is really a state law, my fucking head is gonna explode.

I presume the case here is when someone dies (or disappears or something). Well, in this case I have a checking account at the same bank that I use on nearly a daily basis. Same name, same address. It wouldn't take due diligence for the bank to determine I'm not dead. It wouldn't take much diligence at all.

Secondly, let's say the savings account was the only account I had there. And let's say I didn't use it for over a year. Why in the holy fuck would it be surrendered to the state? This isn't the way it is with any other assets. They'd go to my nearest living relative. The bank knows plenty about me, and again, this wouldn't be hard to determine. So why the hell would my money go to the state?

So I call the number and the lady doesn't know what the law is, she just wants me to transfer $1 from my checking to my savings to flip the toggle on the account. But I want some friggin answers. They say they are "help you with any of your financial questions". But not that one apparently.

Anybody out there know whether or not this is bullshit? Of course it was easy to transfer the buck from one account to another. But it's the principle of the thing. And I do not like receiving letters in which my money is threatened to be surrendered to the state. I'll be doing a little research of my own, but if anybody else out there knows anything I'd greatly appreciate it.