Each of these is a refusal this regime lets a counterparty attempt, paired with the answer to it. Reading them before you write is worth more than any amount of polish on the letter itself.
A "recovery agent" or "asset locator" contacts you first
high likelihoodA firm writes or calls saying it has located money in your name and will recover it for a share — commonly a quarter to a half — and asks you to sign a locator agreement before it will tell you where the money is or who holds it.
What answers it
Every register in this product is free to search and free to claim from, and the office holding the money will not pay a finder any faster than it pays you. You do not need to know where the money is to find it: search the official portal for your own name. If you have already signed, check the statutory finder rules for the jurisdiction — most void an agreement made within a defined window after the property reached the administrator and cap the fee thereafter, and an agreement that breaks those rules is unenforceable against you.
"The owner is deceased and you have not proved you are entitled"
high likelihoodThe register holds property in a dead relative's name and the administrator asks for grant of probate, letters of administration or an equivalent that the family never obtained because the estate looked too small to be worth administering.
What answers it
Ask the office what its small-estate route is before you pay for probate. Most administrators will pay a modest sum to a surviving spouse or next of kin on an affidavit of heirship, a death certificate and proof of relationship, precisely because requiring a grant for a small balance would mean nobody ever claims it. Where the sum is large enough to need a grant, the existence of the asset is itself the reason to obtain one.
"We cannot match you to this record"
high likelihoodThe administrator cannot tie the claimant to the reported owner because the address on the holder's record is decades old, the name is spelled differently, or a middle initial is missing.
What answers it
This is an evidential problem, not a refusal, and it is solved with documents rather than argument. Send whatever ties your identity to the address the holder reported: an old driving licence, a utility bill, a tax return, a lease, a bank statement, a marriage certificate for a name change, or a sworn statement where nothing else survives. Ask the office in writing which specific element it cannot match so you answer the actual gap rather than resending what it already has.
"We sold the shares, so you get the sale proceeds"
medium likelihoodShares reported as abandoned were sold by the administrator, and the owner is offered the cash raised at the time of sale rather than the shares or their present value.
What answers it
Ask on what date the sale happened, under what statutory power, and what notice was given first. Several jurisdictions require the administrator to hold securities for a defined period before selling, and some require them to be returned in kind, or their value made good, where a claim is made within a stated window of the sale. Whether or not that applies, get the sale date and price in writing: it is the only way to know what you actually lost, and it is the foundation of any complaint.