🔺 r/personalfinanceuNaGaBa·36 days ago
Claiming old AMD shares owned by deceased spouse
My mother was legally married to a woman who passed away in 2018. Over time, it came to light that there's a stock certificate for shares of AMD purchased in the 80's... wife liked to squirrel things away and not everything was automatically transferred over to mom. Mom's done lots of digging for bank accounts, retirement accounts, etc. through whatever hoops a same-sex marriage may have brought up. The AMD stock has done pretty well since purchased, needless to say. Mom has gotten letters about unclaimed property and it does show up in California's unclaimed property database. Actually claiming it has been so far impossible. Mom has the original Merrill Lynch receipt complete with certificate numbers. So far as we can tell, the shares are held by ComputerShare. In her digging, there's mention of a Medallion Signature required to transfer anything. Mom has accounts at Chase; Chase is worthless for help. Mom has accounts at Fidelity; Fidelity has apparently said "get to a physical office and MAYBE we can help out". If that's what she needs to do, that's a valid answer... she doesn't have one very close to her, which may be why she's not tried that option. Is this even the right plac…