Yes, I have had dealings with several and most are legit albeit their fees are a tad high for the work IMHO and Yes, you do need to be a tad wary but Google or a quick couple of phone calls will usually sort out credentials/scams.
My dealings have been on behalf of family members who have been slack over the years about finances.
3 seperate amounts that we recovered were to do with AMP when AMP issued shares or securities to policy holders.
The amounts were held by ASIC so don't show up on any "lost super" searches or similar.
There are millions of dollars held this way when companies demutualise or whatever and policy holders have long forgotten to update addresses.
Because the money is now held in trust/escrow or whatever AMP for example don't even know about it and you can't retrieve it through them, you have to do your proof of identity and claim through ASIC or whoever.
These retrieval companies or indeed anyone can freely access names and amounts.
Thenthey go fishing and look for current addy's off electoral rolls or whatever and send out a letter/s to anyone whose name matches.
If you can sleuth out enough info on who has the money you can get it yourself.
You just need good proof of ID etc and records of some description that you resided at the "old" address.
If the amount is substantial and you cannot suss it out and want use the retrieval company, give them a call and try for a lower commission.
The amount of work they have to do is the same no matter the sum involved and you are the one who has to provide the ID etc anyway.
All they are doing is asking for a finders fee and collating your docs.
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