Recently both my parents and parents in law contacted me urgently as important looking letters from CollectionPoint had arrived at our childhood postal addresses. The name "Collection Point Pty Ltd" (www.collectionpoint.com.au/ ) sounded ominous - debt collection - so I was dreading openning the envelopes.

Instead it was saying that CollectionPoint had "found" some missing money in my name - nearly $500. Great no mystery debt - next day I rang them to see what the deal was. They couldn't tell me any details but as long as I was willing to part with $160 collection fee I could keep the rest. Plus give them certified copies of vital identification. Hmm - sounds a bit suspicious and risky (ie they'll have certified copies of my identification plus $160 of my money - bargain).

Anyway, after some Googling I found that other people had received these letters and had recovered their money by using their local government unclaimed moneys online databases:

http://www.publictrustee.act.gov.au/unclaimed/links.html

https://www.e-business.sro.vic.gov.au/eBusiness/UnclaimedMoneys/faces/searchForm.jsp

I found my money in Victoria - didn't need to bother with CollectionPoint at all.

I'm guessing that CollectionPoint must trawl these databases and have some correlation system with electoral roles and phone books to generate the letters which go out. I suspect others have come to somewhat greater grief with them too:

http://www.consumeraction.org.au/downloads/MR-CollectionPointwarning030709.pdf