Junk mail, calls, e-mail - What next?

E-mail users are familiar with spam. That's nuisance e-mail.

But ain't technology great?

Enterprising Web-savvy entrepreneurs have developed software for your computer that claims to filter out spam. We've tried it on computers here at the newspapers, and the most effective filter pretty much stops all your incoming e-mail.

Which is one way to stop spam.

Interestingly, the spam-busters are hyping their filter software by -- how else? -- sending e-mail.

Telephone users are familiar with telemarketing calls and other interruptions from folks you don't know -- and probably don't care to know.

Missouri has its no-call list, which is supposed to keep telemarketers at bay, except there are a lot of exceptions. Phone companies, for example, can still call you in their never-ending efforts to get you to switch your phone service to another phone company.

The phone company also sells special services such as caller IDs and privacy managers that pretty much stops annoying calls. While privacy manager is effective, it also makes it hard for you to get calls you want sometimes.

These days, the best way to barrage people you don't know with useless information is courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service. So far, no one has come up with spam software or a privacy manager for mail that works.

Which is why our mailbox is stuffed almost every day. I'll bet our mail carrier wonders why we get so much stuff.

Here's why:

My wife and I both like to look at catalogs. Blame it on whatever you want, but I suspect it has something to do with being part of the Sears-Roebuck and Montgomery Ward generation.

Like many of you, we remember the days when mail orders were a big deal, particularly if you grew up in a small town or on a farm. I remember when walking a mile to the mailbox and waiting for the carrier to show up was real excitement.

Nowadays, looking at catalogs is still as much fun as I remember, especially the Wish Book that always came several weeks before Christmas.

Not too many years ago, our mail-order catalogs were mostly from places that sold flower bulbs and plants. Then we added a few clothing outlets. And I've always enjoyed catalogs full of gadgets.

But here's what we've learned:

Almost anyone who sends you a catalog is probably owned by a Big Company that has all kinds of merchandising enterprises. So you might request a catalog for shoes, but pretty soon you're also getting catalogs for belts, suspenders, overcoats, lingerie and outdoor gear. Some days we get as many as a dozen catalogs.

We used to throw away junk mail disguised as a letter from the IRS or designed to look like there's a check in the envelope. But we don't do that anymore. Why? Because my wife threw away some junk mail a few years ago that had checks in it -- blank checks issued by her credit-card company. Someone found those discarded check and cashed one at a Florida bank for several thousand dollars.

When the bill came, the credit-card company immediately removed the charge from her account and pursued the criminal who "borrowed" the check, who, it turns out, was easy to track down since he was stupid enough to sign a check imprinted with my wife's name with his own real name.

Makes you wonder about the bank teller who handed over $4,000, doesn't it?

Now we rip up anything that comes in an envelope before tossing it in the trash. So far we haven't destroyed anything we wanted or needed -- that we know of.

Fifty years ago, we didn't have a telephone at the farm on Killough Valley. We certainly didn't have a computer. And the mailbox only had legitimate mail.

I'm wondering what smart people will dream up for the next 50 years.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.