As a former bank teller (many years ago) I seriously doubt if checks are sent out for us to cash, unless they are for smaller amounts than we would think of as fair and reasonable. Checks will not be issued and mailed to us to cash for large amounts! My investment was made in WAMU from an IRA account in Fidelity. All these years I have been mailed a monthly statement showing "my positions". My feeling is that after all these years of record keeping, it is no big deal that these "worthless" accounts have been removed from my portfolio. For many years, a stock was listed, but had no value, it was worth nothing!
I am thinking that now, if this money has had taxes paid on it prior to us receiving the value, it will NOT go back into the IRA. It was zeroed out and then Poof Ghondi. When this is paid out, with all taxes paid to date, it will no longer go in our IRA account, but will be in a new place, where it will be available to us without the penalty to be paid, that would have been due from the IRA, which was money that no income taxes had been paid on. The worthless escrow account in our IRA account no longer exists. The money coming back will have had taxes paid, and thus will be a brand new account that can be more readily available to us to use. Make sense, folks?