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Home » Democracy » Should You Avoid Abbre­vi­at­ing 2020 on Checks and Legal Documents?

Should You Avoid Abbre­vi­at­ing 2020 on Checks and Legal Documents?

January 7, 2020 by Shae Irving

Many news sources have been cau­tion­ing con­sumers to write out 2020 on checks and legal doc­u­ments they sign this year. That’s because the typ­i­cal prac­tice of abbre­vi­at­ing the date to 20—as in 1/1/20—makes it easy to alter the date. And that increases the risk of fraud.

As writer for Forbes notes:

The prob­lem stems from the ease at which the year 20 can be changed to any date from the last two decades. For exam­ple 04/​01/​20 could eas­ily be changed to 04/​01/​2017, giv­ing scam­mers a chance to defraud you.

CNN gives this spe­cific exam­ple of the type of fraud that could occur:

[L]et’s say you sign a credit contract—an agree­ment between a bor­rower and a lender—and date it 1/​4/​20. Say you then miss a month or two of pay­ments, and the lender goes to col­lect the debt that’s owed. The­o­ret­i­cally, they could add “19” to the end of that date and argue that you owe more than a year’s worth of payments .…

Addi­tional sources point out how easy it would be to change the date on other types of legal con­tracts. They also point to poten­tial prob­lems with extend­ing the win­dow of time in which a “stale” check might be cashed.

These reports have attracted lots of crit­ics who point out that there are plenty of ways that some­one who wants to com­mit fraud can change doc­u­ments and dates. And that even if fraud occurs, there are many ways to prove that some­one faked a document.

That said, why ask for trou­ble? It takes less than a sec­ond to scratch out that extra “20” to write 2020 on a check. It may even help you train your­self to stop writ­ing “19.”

More Infor­ma­tion

You can find infor­ma­tion about fil­ing con­sumer complaints—and other ways to exer­cise your legal and con­sumer rights and opinions—by vis­it­ing the Democ­racy cen­ter on legal​con​sumer​.com.

Filed Under: Democracy

About Shae Irving

Shae Irving has been writing for Legal Consumer since 2013, focusing on health care and family law. She was a senior legal editor and editorial project manager at Nolo, where she worked for twenty-two years. Shae has degrees in rhetoric and law from U.C. Berkeley. She lives in Northern California.

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