Okay - good news! I heard from another holder who went through...

Okay - good news!  I heard from another holder who went through the following process - I will probably try this tomorrow.

Here is all you need to do:

Either email or call AST on (718) 921-8124 (they are on Eastern Time in the US - which is 16 hours behind AEST).  Their phones are open from 8am-8pm.  I will definitely try calling them rather than the email approach and apparently no need to post the form to them.

If you call, they will ask for your Account number - the one starting with 90000 and you will be required to identify your personal details.

The guy who told me about this process was told that once he identified himself, this actually served as enough information to consider his account as active - they said they would remove the Unclaimed Property Status and apparently they sent an email confirming this.

As for the W-8BEN form, if you choose to complete this, for point 8 (Reference number), you write the 90000xxxx number.  You can apparently fax or email a scanned copy of the form to them via their [email protected] address and ask for confirmation of receipt.  If they don't respond, just email them again.

I'll advise my success (or otherwise) over the next few days.