Thanks for the tip. I don't write cheques for myself but I do for my mom.

You're welcome. I've seen numerous articles about it so thought I'd share. It's actually applicable to any document you'd sign where you'd need to include the date.

What purpose would someone have to change it to an earlier year? I don't understand this warning.

Why would someone commit fraud by changing the date? It's the AMOUNT of the check being changed you should be worried about.

ETA, perhaps a contract having the date changed could cause problems, so that's probably good advice for other documents. Changing the year on the check to an earlier date would just likely void it.

I always write out the entire year - I'm not big on abbreviations. I also write the month in letters instead of numbers, and so I would write Jan 2, 2020 instead of 1/2/2020. I consider this part of my signature, and if I see a date that was written with all numbers, I know that I did not write it. I also have never written the year with just two digits. I also write everything on checks in cursive.

Last week I had to order some new checks, and it cost me $90 for 40 checks. I guess that is one reason not to write checks.

I was unaware that there was anyone who did not write checks.

That's an absurd price, Lars! I pay less than that for something like 6 boxes of checks.

Checks are soooo not scrutinized it isn't difficult for one to be misused, is someone wanted to bother. I get them back, paid out w/o my signature, ANY date yadda yadda.

I always write out the date on the checks and any documents I sign.

It's new Y2K!

:)

Lars, I just reordeered checks and they're free with my account. You can order them from other places a lot less...i used to get them rom Current as I recall.

I just hope that the Roaring 20s of the 1900s doesn't become the Warring 20s of the 2000s.

My kids ordered checks at a reasonable price from Walmart and Costco. Mine are free with my account.

I already wrote 2020 on the first 6 checks in my checkbook so I don't make a mistake when using one. I only write a dozen or so checks a year though.

IIRC banks are not suppose to cash stale-dated checks so how would back-dating it be in anyone's favor?

I don't know the last time I wrote a check. Maybe two or three years ago?

But this date-writing advice is excellent, especially for notarized documents, legal forms, etc. Anyone could change the year, and not just to a previous year, but to a future year - potentially causing documents to be unintentionally superseded.

I can’t remember when I last wrote a cheque, or received one. I’m not even sure our bank issues them any more.

My cheques all have 20 pre-printed on them, and I have to fill in the remainder.....19, 20 etc. They changed a few years ago to the month/date and year. No more writing in the month and date, they're numerical.

Wow Lars what kind of checks are you getting? I currently get mine from Walmart but I have used Current checks and a few other companies. None of them have come anywhere near that price.

I only write checks these days for my yard crew and my cleaning ladies. So they last a long time.

Lars, that's an outrageous amount to pay for blank checks. Mine were free on two accounts and my money market until a couple of years ago when my bank initiated a fee for checks on my household account. The business account still wasn't charged a fee for blank checks. I ordered a box a few weeks ago and think I paid about half what you did for secure trackable order.

Thank you, @sephia_wa.

Mine are free. We have 3 checking accounts and get free checks with each. We use 3 different credit unions.

To those questioning what the issue is, I guess you didn't read the article in the link I provided. Thanks mdln for copying the text out of the article and displaying it. Google it if you want more info.

Sorry, I see this as a made-up issue. Any alteration to a key field on a check by a third party is fraud and voids the check. The risk of the consequences of any change lies with the bank, not the account holder.

An alteration to a check sent pursuant to a contractual obligation doesn't change the contract or the payer's liability under it.

I'd call this making a mountain out of a mole hill, but there isn't even a mole hill.

Write out your checks however you want and sleep well.

PS - I too rarely write checks. The last time was for a car - the dealer wanted a payment. I had to look to find my checks, they were squirreled away.

You are all wrong. :-)

All dates, everywhere, always, should be written as YYYY-MM-DD with the month and the date having a leading zero if the number is less than 10. In this way dates are easily computable and easily lexacographically sortable.

So today is, unambiguously: 2020-01-03

This helpful graphic shows several other unacceptable date formats:

https://xkcd.com/1179/

I think it was a slow news day (or days) and some genius news journalist made up a silly story to give people something to talk about.

The checks I bought are for my business account. When I need more, I will shop around for a better price. I buy checks that make a duplicate copy so that I do not have to write anything on a stub. Forty checks should last me a year, based on what I wrote in 2019. I did think $90 was very high for 40 checks. In the past, I ordered 200 at a time, I think. I pay no service charge for my account, but I do keep a high minimum balance - for my own peace of mind.

I write checks for mortgage, contractors, pool service, and taxes. The pool service wants me to pay with Zelle, but that is not possible with a business account. I also cannot make political donations electronically from a business account. The mortgage could be paid on line, but since my brother and I split the amount, we both write checks.

I should probably open an account with the credit union that Kevin uses, which is First Entertainment, and you have to be an entertainment employee or family member to use it.

There is always something else we have to worry about!

While I appreciate sephia's posting the article, I agree with those who are skeptical. I file this article under one of journalism's intents lately "let's create worry and anxiety".

But today is 03-01-2020 in Europe, or using bob_cville's example: 2020-03-01.

So 01-03-2020 and 2020-01-03 ARE ambiguous.

> While I appreciate the sephia's posting the article, I agree with those
who are skeptical. I file this article under one of journalism's intent
lately "let's create worry and anxiety".

Just think how many articles and how much worry and how much anxiety they were able to drum up around the "Y2K" problem or the Mayan 2012 Apocalypse. They are just trying to recapture lost glory.

> But today is 03-01-2020 in Europe.

Then Europe is wrong too. :-)

Canada is wrong too, then Bob. Our date is often stated day/month/year.

I thought to check my cheque book (as I've written a number of cheques to charitable, justice and political agencies recently). From my bank account, so money on which income tax has been paid. Due to my not having transferred stock/s to the charityable agency in time (see below).

The date space shows a series of boxes, "20(space)(space)-(space)(space)-(space)(space), with

"YYYY-MM-DD" underneath each of the boxes (except the hyphens, which have no parallel box). __________

I've been moving some money from one of Canada's big banks (not the one a few of whose shares I've owned for over 50 years - how dumb is that not to do business where you're part owner, however miniscule), to a credit union.(1)

The credit union charges something like $50. to order 100?, or 200?, cheques.

When I needed some cheques, I asked the bank what fee - 50 for free.

Well, I'll order 100 (who knows how many more years my heart may continue to beat?).

There's a fee when ordering that many.

So I ordered the free fif-tee.

There were 100 in the envelope that arrived - so who says that one never gets free stuff from a bank? (Maybe they have fuller info than I, as to my life expectancy?)!

Recently couldn't find 'em when needed, so ordered more, no reference to how many - the numbering to start at 100, he said.

I'll be leaving enough money in the bank to cover the cheques that I write.

1. Many of those shares have been transferred to local Community Foundation or United Way, who have agreed to transfer most of the funds to various charities that I designate and I receive an income tax deductible receipt for the full amount ...

... and avoid paying income tax on that substantial capital gain.

I like "before-tax" better!

ole joyfuelled

Was this a problem last time the first two digits of the year = the last two digits of the year? Hmmmm, the year 1010. Probably not many of us were writing checks (or much of anything) back then! If we get thru this year, we're safe until the year 3030?

Not a bad thing to be aware of. I'd rather pen an extra 2 digits to make something clear, than deal with ambiguity. Not that anything I do this year will be all that important, I hope.