New Jersey Partnership for Online Safety: Forum on Internet Safety for Seniors
On Friday July, 10, 2009 the Safe Internet Alliance traveled to New Jersey to attend the “Forum on Internet Safety for Seniors” hosted by the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades
And one of our Alliance members, Verizon as part of their New Jersey Partnership for Online Safety.
We had the pleasure of meeting Murray Weiss, who teaches internet classes to fellow seniors at the Kaplen JCC, and we asked his advice: What can tech-savvy individuals do to help the seniors in their community learn more about internet safety?
Here’s what Murray suggested…
We’d like to add a few other tips from the forum that we thought were great advice for seniors:
The FBI's website has an entire section dedicated to cyber fraud scams targeting senior citizens and maintains a resource listing the scams currently out there.
If you receive an email asking for money for ANY reason, find someone you trust (even your local law enforcement) to help you verify if this email is legitimate.
Offers for free credit reports are one of the most common cyber scams targeting seniors. Seniors should know that they are only allowed ONE free credit report a year, and should online use TRUSTED resources to retrieve this report. Verizon recommends three: TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax.
And on a closing note to seniors: If you ever feel threatened by some interaction online NEVER be afraid to report it…and NEVER let someone try to convince you not to report it!