The new year is giving scammers an easy way to forge documents. You can protect yourself with an easy New Year’s resolution: Stop abbreviating the year.
This post was originally posted by USA today. find it here
Because this year starts and ends with the same two digits, documents dated with the abbreviation 20 are easier to forge. If a scammer wants to make it look like a contract you signed this year was actually filled out last year, all they’d have to do is add 19 at the end of the shortened date. This tactic could be used to trick you (or the authorities) into thinking you owe a debt on payments you haven’t agreed to start sending yet.
Abbreviating the year also makes it possible to forge dates in the future. If a check signed this year becomes inactive before it’s cashed, someone could possibly change the date to 2021 in an attempt to cash it late.
Fortunately, this is one potential scam that’s easy to combat. When signing important documents this year, always take the extra second to write the full date. This makes the date much harder to tamper with. It’s the same reason you should always fill the entire line of the check when writing the payment amount.
