New Year Scam 2020 Style
It’s not just a new year … it’s a new decade. Not quite the ‘Age of Aquarius’ type of timestamp, but a new decade brings hope and positivity for our families and futures. It’s around this time in mid-January that many of us realize, “Hey, that exercise plan I agreed to do on January 1st at 12:06 am, that was just an example, not something I actually have to do on a daily or weekly basis and certainly not for the next ten years!” By the way, the same goes for those clean eating goals, too. If you can eat clean four or even five out of seven days, you’re likely in the bonus.
On average it takes about two months for a new behavior to become a habit (or if you are a supporter of the 21/90 rule, it may take a bit longer). Why is this a topic in our blog? Because how we write the year out today is going to have to break an old habit of abbreviating it, as many of us have done for the last nine years. The simple truth is that scammers are trying to forge our documents when we just write ’20’ instead of ‘2020.’
As reported by CNN’s Harmeet Kaur, “When the year 2020 is abbreviated on official forms and documents, those looking to exploit unsuspecting people can easily manipulate those numbers and leave people potentially vulnerable to fraud.” Auditors and police departments around the country have been notifying the public that when you write a date on a document, to not shorthand the year 2020 to just ’20.’ A document dated 1/4/20 can easily be changed to 1/4/2021 by adding two numbers at the end. Or, it could go the opposite way … a creditor could say you owed money from 2019 just by adding ’19’ after the ’20.’
Just putting forth a little effort in writing 2020 out in full, which will eventually become habit if done often enough, is a small step toward protecting you and your family from check or document fraud.
From the entire team at Guard Well, we wish you a wonderful, happy and prosperous 2020. If you suspect that fraud has happened to you, we are available 24/7/365 at 888.966.GUARD (4827) and [email protected].
