When the calendar switched over to 2020, I, like many other college students nationwide, promptly forgot what year it was and started dating all my papers as if it was still 2019. An easy enough mistake to make, when itâs easily correctable with the backspace button and the only documents affected are your English papers. When it comes to papers of more bearing, such as checks, the consequences can be more dire, and this year more than ever.
If one fails to write the last two digits of the year on a check, fraudsters might be able to take that check, write in a new date, and cash it for themselves.
However, one local former lawyer says the consequences of forgetting to add a â20â to your check arenât as dangerous as theyâre made out to be.
Hans Stucki practiced law as a litigator for 42 years, first in Ohio and later in Illinois, and called concerns over dating fraud âsomewhat overblownâŚmostly because there are easier ways to commit scams that are so much more profitable.â
He said checks older than six months usually wonât be accepted by banks, and if a fraudster wrote the checkâs date out to be a later year, theyâd have to wait longer to cash it or theyâd otherwise be caught.
âEven in The Sun Day, Iâve read stories about people being victims of phone scams and credit card scams,â Stucki said, but he added checking fraud scams, especially of this type, are exceedingly rare.
I reached out to nearly a dozen banks within Huntley village limits to see whether this type of fraud is common in the area; most banks either reported no recent dating fraud or were unable to comment.
What the community should be aware of, Stucki said, are dating incidents involving retail or service contracts. For example, service providers might add in the digits of an earlier year to falsely claim a customer has unpaid dues. If said customer is particularly forgetful and unsure if theyâve paid the contract, they might be swindled out of more money than they rightfully owe.
âUsually you canât enforce a claimâŚunless youâre able to bully somebody into paying it without going to court,â he said, â[and] you donât really need the 2020 issue to bully somebody.â
Compared to other scams, Stucki called dating fraud easy to accomplish, but with negligible profits, and compared public worry over it to Y2K.
The easiest way to prevent yourself from being scammed, he said, is to write down the full date on any official documentation, but especially with regards to a check, failing to do so most likely wonât be anything to panic over.
