Lately faculty and staff at Ohio State University have been receiving “junk mail” in their mailboxes.

“That mailbox is for students, not for outside mail,” said Ernesto Machado, a teaching assistant in the Mathematics department. “It’s very suspicious that everyone that has a mailbox in the math department gets the same mail.”

“We do not maintain mailing lists, and have not sold anything,” said Scott Braidick at the Department of Mail Services.

According to Braidick he has also received some “junk mail,” and does not know why this is occurring.

OSU main campus isn’t the only campus that is having this problem. The Ohio State regional campuses in Marion and Newark have been receiving “junk mail” also.

According to a source at the Marion campus that wishes to remain anonymous, the Marion campus has received “junk mail” also. It has consisted of credit card applications and has happened two days in a row. The sources also said that they have just been shredding and throwing the credit card applications away.

The Newark campus has also received credit card applications in the mail intended for both teachers and students. They have been returning the applications back to the sender.

Not only is the faculty and staff receiving “junk mail” in their mailboxes they are also getting it through their e-mail accounts at OSU, said Bob Kalal, associate director of OIT.

According to Kalal there are a million ways for companies to get e-mail addresses.  Most of the time it is because people just give their addresses away.  He also added that it is easy to obtain the information because the companies can buy an OSU directory, which has e-mail addresses in them.

As long as the material that is sent is legal, there isn’t a lot that anyone can do, said Kalal.  One thing that Kalal recommends is to just delete the e-mail.  He says buy sending back a response that says please take me off your mailing list, that you are letting the company know that this is a live address that someone checks.

According to Kalal some states are working or various laws in attempt to control unsolicited mail. One law that is being considered is that companies cannot send you mail unless you already have a working relationship with that company.

“This is a problem, it’s distracting,” said Kalal. “I typically get 150 e-mails a day, while 25 percent of them are “junk mail.”  This makes it easier to miss or even delete important messages.”

One thing that worries Kalal is the number of “dot COM” companies that are going belly up.

“They (dot COM companies) may promise security but once they go bankrupt that promise is meaningless.”

Once they go bankrupt a judge can consider personal information an asset and then they can sell it for a profit, said Kalal.  These companies will also sell their personal computers that contain customer information on them.

Kalal suggests that if you have a problem with a growing number of “junk e-mails” to call 292-HELP and they will help you to get rid of them.