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Comment by throw1234567891 | Hacker News Reader

Because the legal requirement is to keep those financial records for a maximum of 10 years? I'm sure it depends on jurisdiction, and the type of the document, but financial records generally 10 years in Europe.

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Don't worry, if they think they can extract more money out of you, you can be sure they still keep the documents. Case in point my HSBC account which is officially closed since 2014 and they still try to contact me illegally.

What about financial accounts? I need to ping my accounts every X years or the company just keeps the money?

Depends on the jurisdiction. In the US, each state has escheatment[0] laws governing how untouched accounts are retired and how they may be subsequently claimed by their original owner. That process typically happens through a government agency rather than through the original company that held the account. But other parts of the world have other processes.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escheat#Transfer_agents_and_es...

That doesn't seem logically related (though that doesn't mean it legally isn't). If there's a statement from last year saying that the account has x amount of money in it, then that's a document within the 10 year retention even if the last deposit was more than 10 years ago, so there's still a record that the account exists.

Yes? What happens if you don’t ping in 20, 50, 100 years? At some point between 0 and infinity, it’s probably safe to assume you’re not coming back.

You can argue where to draw the line, but arguing that there shouldn’t be a line at all is absurd

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