There are lots of fun things about the year being 2020 but you may not be aware yet that there’s a potential fraud that it enables. It is simple to protect yourself from this, but first let’s see what it is.
It’s common when writing the date to use a format like “16/01/20” or “16/1/20”.
However this makes it really say to alter. Look at the picture below, if the middle two post-its didn’t have a couple of digits in a different colour you would never know that they were originally written the same as the top on:
Why does this matter?
Let’s assume that someone wanted to act fraudulently, and for example if you signed an agreement was coming into force in the future, it would be easy to change the date so that it was backdated and for example you could end up appearing liable for money owed earlier than you did.
Alternatively supposing you had an agreement that was coming into force immediately, or this year for example you’d agreed to sell and payment on 30 days terms, it would be easy to alter a date so that it looked like the payment terms were a year and 30 days.
How can you protect yourself?
Look again at the picture. If instead of writing the first post it I’d written the one on the bottom it wouldn’t be possible to alter it without crossing something out.
We’re recommending to clients and our community that if you need to write the date in 2020 you always use the full 4 digit year to protect yourself from potential fraud.
We’d love to know if you’ve any tips for protecting your organisation from unscrupulous people.