Please Don’t Abbreviate the Year ‘2020’ on Checks and Legal Documents

http://www.frequentbusinesstraveler.com/2020/01/please-dont-abbreviate-the-year-2020-on-checks-and-legal-documents/

by maxheadnyc • 7 years ago

27 66 7 years ago

maxheadnyc• 7 years ago

Many of us in tech are prone to using mobile apps instead of cash - but we do sign legal documents and this is an area where it would pay to be particularly careful when writing the year.

blhack• 7 years ago

I think that if somebody is going to commit fraud against you by changing the date on a check or document, that this is not going to matter at all.

war1025• 7 years ago

I saw one of my aunts share this on Facebook and was unsure if it was actual advice or just the normal chain mail spam that gets passed around.

Thoughts?

conqrr• 7 years ago

This one does make sense. I haven't read it yet, but I always write the full year. For 2020, if you abbreviate it as just 20, adding two more digits allows anyone to fake a future date into 79 years (2021, 2022.. 2099) etc However in the past, this would have been avoided since abbreviating 2019 as 19 and adding two digits would move you into the past which wont make sense always.

lukeholder• 7 years ago

Moving a date into the past or the future can both be just as disruptive, depending on the application.

SkyPuncher• 7 years ago

IMO, mostly chain mail.

1. Most contracts don't exist in isolation. They'll be associated with some sort of supporting event. Emails, text messages, etc.

2. Similarly, when a contract actually matters (under legal evaluation), it isn't evaluated in isolation. That includes establishing the validity of the contract. If the parties disagree on the date, that should raise red flags.

3. You should retain a copy of the contract no matter what.

4. Last, but not least. Anything of importance should (1) using the full date - perhaps even spelling out the month to avoid format differences (2) consider involving a 3rd party witness like a notary.

NickBusey• 7 years ago

Please just never abbreviate the year. 100 years passes quickly these days.

reificator• 7 years ago

Yet more reason to use the objectively correct date format.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Dates

gtirloni2• 7 years ago

How is it more "objectively correct" than DD-MM-YYYY?

QuesnayJr2• 7 years ago

ASCII sorting order is chronological order.

mcrae• 7 years ago

Because its unambiguous -- DD-MM-YYYY could be confused for MM-DD-YYYY

rightbyte• 7 years ago

Little endian is obviously heretic, in left-to-right languages.

reaperducer4• 7 years ago

How is it more "objectively correct" than DD-MM-YYYY?

Because the I in ISO means International, so it's automatically better on HN.

It's why the people on HN go to International House of Pancakes so much, but wouldn't be caught dead in The Pancake House.

timbit42• 7 years ago

For the same reasons the time format HH:MM:SS is objectively correct and and not HH:SS:MM, SS:MM:HH, MM:SS:HH, SS:HH:MM, or MM:HH:SS.

jacquesm9• 7 years ago

That is the right format but 'normal people' assume context first so the 12th of January without further context indicates the present year and the 12th of January 2019 or just '19 is enough to disambiguate. The ISO date code was created with computers in mind (sort order) but real people are not computers and besides that there are quite a few other date systems in the world so it is biased to Gregorian anyway.

NullPrefix2• 7 years ago

so called 'normal people' ... context first ... indicates the present year

If I refer to 12th of January during Christmas, do I refer to the one that is just a few weeks away or the one that is in the present year?

noisem4ker2• 7 years ago

I think it's a small hurdle to overcome. Our visual parsing routine can be updated to read YYYY-MM-DD focusing on the rightmost digits, if those are what's important.

tomc1985• 7 years ago

This meme is analyzed in detail by a lawyer and his friend in the middle of this podcast:

https://openargs.com/oa347-pennhurst-and-the-voter-purge-in-...

JMStewy• 7 years ago

Relevant discussion starts at 14:00 (15:47 to skip the intro).

jtbayly• 7 years ago

Could you give us a summary, or a reason to bother listening to it?

JoshuaMulliken2• 7 years ago

Basically you shouldn’t worry about this legally or practically. The law is robust enough to prevent this from being an issue

noisem4ker2• 7 years ago

Just switch to ISO 8601 formatted dates already: YYYY-MM-DD.

choward• 7 years ago

I agree. I love when my dates sort fine as normal strings. It's easier to read too imo.

lunchladydoris• 7 years ago

I regret that I have but one upvote to give.

Nerdfest2• 7 years ago

I've had my rant at someone already this year. A lawyer posting about legal documents saying "make sure you put all four digits in to avoid confusion" and the giving an example like 03/01/2020.

Sigh.

joshspankit• 7 years ago

To be real, that might be a date format I would fire a lawyer over.

apple4ever• 7 years ago

In the debate between US and non-US dates, I think this is the right answer.

I've started using it as much as possible now. But I am but one man.

jacquesm9• 7 years ago

(1) stop using checks already

and

(2) legal documents should always have the full date (spelled out) on them anyway, so if you just use '20' then that would have been wrong anyway, but 11/Dec/20.

imgabe• 7 years ago

Occasionally some places leave you no option but to use a check, at least in the US.

Someone1234• 7 years ago

Or charge you a fee for paying other ways, even when those other ways are cheaper for them to process than physical checks (e.g. ACH/Debit Cards). It is often just a way to leverage a higher price on consumers unwilling to write physical checks.

marcusjt• 7 years ago

The year is completely ambiguous, could easily be changed from 20 to 2019, 2018, 20anything! ️

jacquesm9• 7 years ago

Yes, it could be. That's why all proper legal documents will have the date spelled out in its entirety, the numbers are just a shorthand, ditto with monetary amounts.

deith2• 7 years ago

Seems like a joke, to think that people still use cheques somewhere... like what the fuck

reaperducer4• 7 years ago

I wish I could live a simple life like you.

Want to buy some land? Get ready to write a check to some person or government agency along the way.

Want to transfer money from your account in bank to another with zero fees? Write a check.

Want to start a business? Expect to write a check along the way.

Want to stay in a hotel in some of the world's most interesting places? Cash or travelers checks. Credit card, if you're lucky, but then with a big fee, and they might not have internet.

The real world isn't all online. It isn't all electronic. It isn't Star Trek.

Tempest1981• 7 years ago

Isn't that the point, that you might think 11/Dec/20 is unambiguous, but it is easily converted to 11/Dec/2011

jacquesm9• 7 years ago

That is why the real date will be spelled out, typically like this: January the twentieth of the year two thousand and twenty or something to that effect. We're talking legal documents here, they don't take chances with those. The date shorthand is just that: a shorthand.

Any serious contract / deed / legal doc I have signed so far has followed that convention, the century being the optional one. The fact that there are always multiple signed copies of such documents, other supporting documents (communications, email) and that fraud in writing is punished quite severely seems to have kept me safe so far.

reaperducer4• 7 years ago

(1) stop using checks already

I always find it interesting how people of a certain age, and especially in technology bubbles, enjoy restricting their options so much, as if there is some kind of nobility in giving themselves fewer choices and less freedom in life.

Best tool for the job is on Windows? No way, I only use bespoke FrotzOS distributions on a laptop I built myself from parts I reflowed in my co-living oven.

One of the best movies of all time is on TV tonight? No way, I only watch video if it comes in an internet stream, and only from services I have to tunnel through three VPNs to reach.

Write a check? No way, I only use the Spltzit app for finances, even though it's not accepted everywhere.

Checks are a thing, and will remain a thing for many more decades, or even longer. Get used to it.

jacquesm9• 7 years ago

Checks are only a thing in the US because there is no proper banking infrastructure. Here in the EU we can transfer money person-to-person, person-to-business and business-to-business instantly between a very large variety of banking institutions spanning 10's of countries. No need for routing instructions, correspondent banks, transfer accounts or any of that bs, and it's cheap to boot.

There is absolutely no reason why the United States could not do the same, in fact it would be easier there. Payment systems in the United States are archaic and error prone. They also tend to offload the risk of fraud onto the consumers/merchants and I suspect that plus the fees are the bigger reasons why the banks are reluctant to get their act together.

sadfklsjlkjwt2• 7 years ago

Many countries have phased out checks. Others only have them as a legacy option. The change happened really fast.

yjftsjthsd-h• 7 years ago

I don't necessarily disagree, but you're glossing over the trade offs in making those decisions. Windows is a poorly behaved proprietary operating system from an extremely poorly behaved company with a long history of doing questionable things. OTA TV has ads and I presume lower quality. Checks, as we are discussing, have what appears to be some long-standing security problems. By all means is the best tool for the job, but don't mistake "works (ignoring costs aid side effects)" for "best", and please don't assume that just because people are very picky about what they use means that they're not doing so for legitimate reasons.

zzo38computer2• 7 years ago

I think the bank should have the option that the person with the bank account can require that cheques written from that account to be digitally signed. If this option is used, then the digital signature must be included in the cheque; you can calculate this on your computer, without requiring an internet connection or any proprietary software. If you do not have a computer, you can go to the bank and they will digitally sign it for you.

ahnberg• 7 years ago

Mandatory link and strong recommendation: https://xkcd.com/1179/

mcphage• 7 years ago

If you’re really committed to abbreviating it, go with 3 characters instead—“020”. Bam! Problem solved. If someone tries to stick digits on the end they’ll get an octal number unexpectedly!

zzo38computer2• 7 years ago

I already don't abbreviate the year if I can avoid it. I prefer YYYY-MM-DD format myself; long form (e.g. "January 4, 2020") can also be used. However, some forms specify use of a particular date format (but if they do, then it is clear what the format is from the form; still sometimes the year can be ambiguous if there is only two digits).

Please Don’t Abbreviate the Year ‘2020’ on Checks and Legal Documents

Related Stories