How it works
One review across your email history, your transactions, and official unclaimed-money sources.
Lost Money Detective does not guess. It looks for documented evidence that value was issued to you, then checks whether it was ever used.
1. Connect a mailbox
You authorize read-only access to an email account. Lost Money Detective looks for receipts, refund notices, gift card deliveries, rebate confirmations and reward statements — the paper trail that shows value was promised or issued to you.
2. Optionally connect financial accounts
Through Plaid, you can connect eligible bank or card accounts so the app can review transaction history. This is what makes it possible to check whether a refund a merchant promised ever actually posted.
3. Lost Money Detective reviews the evidence
The app extracts structured facts — merchant, amount, dates, reference numbers, expiration — and classifies each item into available now, expected, rewards, savings, or expired/needs review. It keeps the facts, not your mailbox.
4. Reconciliation and next steps
Promised amounts are matched against real transactions. When nothing matching posted, the item is flagged for verification with an evidence timeline you can follow, plus the practical steps to pursue it yourself.
The kinds of forgotten money it may help you find
Results depend entirely on what exists in your own records. Some people find nothing.
- Missing refunds
- A return was accepted or a refund was promised, but no matching credit appears in your transactions.
- Airline and travel credits
- Cancelled trips often leave eCredits, vouchers or certificates with their own expiration rules.
- Store credit and merchandise credit
- Issued after returns without a receipt, or as goodwill, and easy to forget.
- Gift cards and eGift cards
- Delivered by email years ago and never fully spent.
- Prepaid and virtual cards
- Rebate cards and promotional virtual cards with small remaining balances.
- Rebates and reimbursements
- Submitted rebates, expense reimbursements and warranty payouts that may still be outstanding.
- Rewards and loyalty certificates
- Points certificates, free-night awards and reward vouchers that expire quietly.
- Class action and settlement notices
- Notices you received but never acted on.
- Government unclaimed property
- Official state and federal programs you can search yourself, for free, through links the app organizes.
Government unclaimed money
State and federal unclaimed-property programs are free to search and free to claim through official channels. Lost Money Detective is not a government agency and does not file claims for you. The app maintains a directory of official state and federal resources with the agency name and the official URL, so you can search the real source yourself.