Nowadays, everyone loves an abbreviation.

LOL, ROFL, LMAO, FOMO, JOMO (my fave), YOLO, totes, obvs, natch, WJYTR, and so on.

I made the last one up, so the jokes on you if you spent any time trying to figure it out.

That being said, you’ll want to write out ‘2020’ in full this year on documents and cheques, because simply jotting down ’20’ could put you at major risk of fraud.

Soz for the bad news.

More deets via Forbes:

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.

“When signing and dating legal documents, do not use 20 as the year 2020,” a Facebook post by the East Millinocket Police Department said. “March 3, 2020 being written as 3/3/20 could be modified to 3/3/2017 or 3/3/2018. Protect yourself. Do not abbreviate 2020.”

It wasn’t long before peeps had commented that the same could apply to 2019, and anybody who simply wrote ’19’ could have that changed to 1999, for example.

The police department had an answer to that:

“Of course we understand that all dates can be altered, however I believe that most here would agree that if a document of any kind, either legal or professional, is brought to our attention as being forged or fraudulent, it would likely raise far more red flags, depending on the circumstances, if it had a date of 1999 as opposed to 2019 or 2021.”

…It’s therefore a good idea to do what they say. Instead of writing just 20, make sure you write the year in full: 2020 on all important documents and cheques.

In addition, a US auditor based in Ohio lent his voice in support of the police:

Then again, ‘ol Dusty spends his days retweeting Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, so he’s lost all credibility, there.

Anyway, if you want to be safe, spend the extra half-second writing ‘2020’ in full, and save the time elsewhere by abbreviating ‘Steve Hofmeyr’ to ‘doos’.

[source:forbes]