Why You Shouldn’t Abbreviate the Year 2020

Everyone knows that the first few weeks of the year mean accidentally dating your pages from the year before. It’s an honest mistake and one that everyone makes at least once in January. However, there’s one mistake that’s unique to 2020 and you do not want to make it.

Instead of writing today’s date as 1/3/20, be sure to write out the entire year. By writing today’s date as 1/3/2020, you are preventing yourself from the risk of fraud. Someone could easily change that 1/3/20 to 1/3/2019 or any other year within this century for that matter. The abbreviation can be altered so easily that it could be used against you.

I never would have thought of this, but it makes sense. A listener came to the station to sign for a prize that she had won today. When she went to date the page, she originally wrote, 1/3/20. She took a second look at it before writing out 2020. She had heard about the advice from law enforcement and was happy she took it. It literally only took her a half of a second to make the revision. You can never be too careful.

“This is very sound advice and should be considered when signing any legal or professional document,” a police department in Maine wrote in a post that’s gone viral. “It could potentially save you some trouble down the road.”

Protect yourself when signing and dating any legal documents this year. Only 363 days left to worry about this issue, thanks to it being a Leap Year.