Finding out the giver of a Savings Bond

Tuesday, December 14th, 2004
Categorized as: Savings Bonds as gifts and prizes

I received a saving bond as a gift. How can I find out the person or persons who gave me the gift?

Tom’s response

I receive this question frequently, but the Treasury doesn’t have a system that has that information.

Is the Social Security Number on the Savings Bond yours? If so, that limits the giver to someone who knows your SSN.

If it’s not yours, it’s the SSN of the giver, which might give you something to go on.

Ask around; someone will take credit.

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10 Comments

On November 15th, 2009 Leigh said:

What if your child has been gifted savings bonds, but they may have been mailed to the person who purchased them(not to the child’s address)or the parent is not even aware of them at all? Additionally, what if the gifter(and not the parent)is listed as a co-owner or POD on the child’s bonds they did receive?

We have been using food assistance since my husband was layed off, but now they are asking about children’s savings bonds and values. We believe we may not know of all bonds that could have been issued in our child’s name, because they were not mailed to our address, or may have been bought without our knowledge. I am assuming that the agency has access to this information that we may not. How do we find out? Will we be held accountable for bonds bought in our child’s name but not mailed to us, or that we were not told of by the buyer?
Sorry for so many questions.

On November 16th, 2009 Tom Adams said:

Leigh - follow the process on my page about getting a list of your Savings Bonds. When you send the letter, include the names and Social Security Numbers of everyone in your family.

The list you get back is the same one the food assistance folks can get, so it gives you a place to start.

Note that it’s still possible for someone to have gifted your child a Savings Bond without using the child’s SSN. Gift givers are allowed to use their own SSN when buying gift bonds. So if that happened, those bonds wouldn’t be on this list. But those bonds aren’t part of your current problem with the food assistance request, either.

Tom Adams

On December 1st, 2009 Teresa said:

I bought EE savings bonds many years ago for some friends children 12 years ago. There is a POD showing the mom’s name. We lost touch with them a couple years after I bought them and I have searched all avenues and cannot locate them.

I do not want these to go into never never land. And am not sure if these are in my name since I was the purchaser. How do I find out if these are under my name?

On December 2nd, 2009 Tom Adams said:

Teresa - since your name isn’t on the bonds they are not under your name. There is a tiny chance you could get your original payment refunded, but I doubt it, given how long it’s been since the bonds were issued. There’s no form for this, you should ask the Treasury whether it will allow this.

Tom Adams

On December 14th, 2009 Phyllis said:

I had taken out my check in 1978 and 1979 for saving bonds. Never receive any bonds from my employer they took the money out of my check. What recourse do I have?

On December 14th, 2009 Tom Adams said:

Phyllis - Since bonds this old have stopped earning interest, you can use Treasury Hunt to see if they were purchased under your Social Security Number. In any case, you’ll have to file the lost bond form to get your money.

Tom Adams

On January 19th, 2010 BOB SADOWSKI said:

WE HAVE PHOTO COPIES OF EE BONDS - - NOT THE ORIGINALS HOW CAN WE FIND OUT IF THESE WERE EVER CASHED??

On January 20th, 2010 Tom Adams said:

Bob - see Have these bonds been cashed?.

Tom Adams

On February 1st, 2010 Gloria Wike said:

I have over l00 EE bonds with different final maturity. They are in my deceased husbands name and I being the beneficiary. Is it necessary I change them all into my name.

On February 2nd, 2010 Tom Adams said:

Gloria - it isn’t necessary to change them to your name but it’s advisable. For more info see:

How to update the registration when you are the beneficiary of Savings Bonds

and

A form for transactions involving many bonds

Tom Adams

Comments Closed

June 1, 2010

After six years, over 400 posts, 3,680 real comments, and over 90,000 spam comments (thank you, Akismet, for making managing a blog with comments possible), I am closing public comments on Savings-Bond-Advisor.com. I will contine to update the main articles on this site, but not the comments.

Virtually every question about Savings Bonds has been asked and answered on this site multiple times. Use the search feature (see the box in the gray area near the top of this page) or the detailed menu on the lower part of the home page to find the information you're looking for.

Tom Adams

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