<prompt> Human: I am helping my mother with this, but I have no idea how to proceed from here. Any suggestions will be appreciated.My mother was let go from her job at CVS in late March of 2000. She received a check from her FutureFund 401k for around 17,000. She went to the local back and opened an IRA. Fast forward 17 years and as life has slowed down around her, she noticed she hadnt got a statement on that account for some time. After going to the bank, they had no record of the deposit or the IRA.Obviously this was unsettling, combine that with the fact that it was 17 years ago and that my mom has to prove she deposited the money. My mother even remembered the teller that set it up for her, dates, and times. It was literally the most money she had ever had.The first place we looked for help was FutureFund. I got a hold of an advisor and explained the situation. Since mom hadnt worked there in sometime, she wasnt in there system and we couldnt create an account for her. Their records dont go back that far, so they referred us to the IRS.The IRS is incredibly hard to get ahold of, but we finally got an advisor. Their records only go back 10 or so years and they referred us to the Social Security office. The Social Security office advisor couldnt help, but thought if we came in and filled out some paperwork, and paid the fees involved that we might be able to get some sort of information about the deposit.I really dont know what to do now or how to get a copy of the check that was deposited in the bank. So any advice will help. Thank you for reading and helping my mother get her savings back. Assistant: They should have some record of her, how positive are you that she completed the rollover to the banks IRA? Do you have any statements handy? Human: Negative, she knows she has the paperwork somewhere, but no idea where. I feel like the process got messed up and the IRA was completed. And trust me, our household income was under 30k a year, she was very careful with the money. Just the bank wasnt it seems.Assistant: she knows she has the paperwork somewhere, but no idea where.Sorry that this is blunt, but not keeping track of your financial paperwork inherently means that she isnt keeping track of her money. Its obviously bad that the bank messed up the record keeping on their end and Im not trying to defend them for their mistake, but the whole point of them giving you those records in so that you have a valid defense in situations like this.Find the paperwork, and you have legal entitlement to the money. If you dont find it, then it just looks like youre someone asking for a hunk of money without any basis of proof.Human: I agree, and I know what it looks like, but life happens. When the basement flooded, we boxed up everything and stored them in 2 different places. It is in there, but finding it any time soon may be a stretch.  <response>: Well if youre sure that the paperwork is stored, then go get it. You make it sound like its going to take a long time, but really how could it take more than a whole day? This is 17 grand here. How hard do you have to work to make 17 grand at your job? This is how much effort you should be putting into figuring this out. 