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Please Don’t Abbreviate the Year ‘2020’ on Checks and Legal Documents
- maxheadnyc 7y agoMany 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 7y agoI 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 7y agoI 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 7y agoThis 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 7y agoMoving a date into the past or the future can both be just as disruptive, depending on the application.
- SkyPuncher 7y agoIMO, 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 7y agoPlease just never abbreviate the year. 100 years passes quickly these days.
- reificator 7y agoYet more reason to use the objectively correct date format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Dates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Dates
- gtirloni 7y agoHow is it more "objectively correct" than DD-MM-YYYY?
- QuesnayJr 7y agoASCII sorting order is chronological order.
- frutiger 7y agoI would note that the first letter of "ASCII" stands for "American".
- tzs 7y agoIs there any language/locale/whatever that both (1) uses Arabic numerals and (2) does not sort the numerals in the same way ASCII does?
- QuesnayJr 7y agoYou're right. I was thinking that you need the dash to sort in the right order, but of course the dash is always in the same place in ISO 8601.
- mcrae 7y agoBecause its unambiguous -- DD-MM-YYYY could be confused for MM-DD-YYYY
- jacquesm 7y agoI personally prefer to spell out the first three letters of the name of the month to reduce ambiguity, this works well across all regions in the world I do business with.
- tomc1985 7y agoThis 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-georgia/ https://openargs.com/oa347-pennhurst-and-the-voter-purge-in-...
- JMStewy 7y agoRelevant discussion starts at 14:00 (15:47 to skip the intro).
- jtbayly 7y agoCould you give us a summary, or a reason to bother listening to it?
- JoshuaMulliken 7y agoBasically you shouldn’t worry about this legally or practically. The law is robust enough to prevent this from being an issue
- Nerdfest 7y agoWhy the hell shouldn't they worry about practicality?
- JoshuaMulliken 7y agoListen to the podcast.
- noisem4ker 7y agoJust switch to ISO 8601 formatted dates already: YYYY-MM-DD.
- choward 7y agoI agree. I love when my dates sort fine as normal strings. It's easier to read too imo.
- lunchladydoris 7y agoI regret that I have but one upvote to give.
- Nerdfest 7y agoI'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 7y agoTo be real, that might be a date format I would fire a lawyer over.
- apple4ever 7y agoIn 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.
- jacquesm 7y 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 7y agoOccasionally some places leave you no option but to use a check, at least in the US.
- Someone1234 7y agoOr 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.
- jacquesm 7y agoPhysical checks are outrageously expensive to process in Europe, about $25 / check.
- marcusjt 7y agoThe year is completely ambiguous, could easily be changed from 20 to 2019, 2018, 20anything! ️
- jacquesm 7y agoYes, 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.
- deith 7y agoSeems like a joke, to think that people still use cheques somewhere... like what the fuck
- ahnberg 7y agoMandatory link and strong recommendation: https://xkcd.com/1179/ https://xkcd.com/1179/
- kbar13 7y agook boomer
- jacquesm 7y agoI'd love for this meme not to take hold on HN. Thank you.
- mcphage 7y agoIf 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!
- zzo38computer 7y agoI 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).