In 2020, Write Full Dates On All Your Papers To Avoid Misuse

Here’s an important tip to keep in mind to avoid your documents from being misused in 2020.

If you’re not writing your dates in the full dd/mm/yyyy format this year, something can go horribly wrong!

(Photo; Kamran Akhter/The Quint)

It’s the year of the Lord (also the year India gains its fictional superpower-dom) 2020. And while we all shared that cat photo to bring us good luck in the coming year, if you are not writing your dates right, things can go horribly wrong for you.

No, I’m not just talking about mistakenly writing ‘2019’ instead of ‘2020’ on your cheques for the first month of the year. I’m also talking about writing something like this- 02/01/20. Here’s why.

DD/MM/YY Format Can Be Manipulated

When you write just ‘20’ instead of ‘2020’ at the end of your dates, then the year can be manipulated.

For example, if you write 02/01/20, then the ‘20’ at the end can be suffixed by a miscreant to make it ‘2021’. So, the date becomes 02/01/2021, instead of the original.

Similarly, the ‘20’ can also be suffixed to turn it into a previous year in the 2000 decade like 2001, 2005, or 2019!

This is going to be a problem for you this year only. You’re all good from 2021 onwards.

How Can This Affect You?

Well, this can be used by miscreants to manipulate hand-signed or handwritten documents- official or otherwise.

For example, if you sign ‘20’ on a cheque, instead of ‘2020’, it can be preserved by someone, the date changed to 2021, and then encashed next year.

While there is a security measure in the banking system, like cheques only being valid for six months since they are dated, to prevent against this- one can never be too careful.

This is going to especially come into play for handwritten challans or other bills can be manipulated in a similar way to either put you in a situation where you’re defaulting, or a situation where you might default in the future.

In any case, it’s always better to be safe, than sorry!