In the days before the scam artists, flimflammers and bamboozlers degraded the e-mail function of the Internet by gumming up the works with “spam” – dubious get-rich-quick schemes, bogus lotteries, outlandish promises of nirvana via sex pill and the like – e-mail was kind of a fun new diversion for the masses.

Suddenly, we could send instant messages to distant pen pals in far-flung outposts, sans postage or long-distance telephone charges that could choke an ox, thereby keeping in touch with old friends while simultaneously satisfying an innate desire to stiff the telephone company and the U.S. Postal Service.

And though we sensed that this sweetheart deal would one day come crashing down around our ears, we expected that the death of a good thing would come through government intervention at the prodding of powerful interests whose profits were down because of our perfidy.

Little did we suspect that it would be slicksters out to make a quick buck that dampened our love affair with the technology. Like algae taking over a once-pristine farm pond to choke off the oxygen supply and eliminate the trout population, the volume of cyberspace crapola in the e-mail pool is approaching pandemic proportions and suffocation of the system seems at hand.

“Your application for a $402,000 home loan at 3.45 fixed-rate interest has been approved,” reads a daily come-on. (That, of course, would be the $402,000 home loan that you hadn’t applied for, nor ever would in your wildest nightmare).

“This offer is being extended to you unconditionally and your credit is in no way a factor. This is a limited-time

opportunity,” someone identifying himself as the “regional CEO” advises, so you’d best get cracking and complete the attached “one-minute post approval form …” In the same batch of e-mail is another announcement using similar language, this one supposedly independent of the first. In this deal, however, we have been “pre-approved” for a $408,958 home loan at a fixed rate of 3.92 percent.

Bite on these can’t-miss offers and your troubles will have just begun, I suspect. Ditto with most of the other dubious cyberspace sales pitches, including a regular public service announcement concerning companionship of the female persuasion.

Karen and Dottie and Susan – and, occasionally, Julie – are said to live within easy commuting distance of the recipient’s home, are terribly lonely, and, as luck would have it, their husbands are out of town three nights a week. The message lends new meaning to the old Maine phrase “subtle as a case of the back-door trots.”

Lately, some outfit billing itself as the “Bangor Daily News Securities Department,” or variations on that theme, has taken up the spammers’ cause of driving me nuts.

“Dear Valued Member,” the message begins. “According to our site policy you will have to confirm your account by the following link or else your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons …”

Since the instructions for saving my bacon seem to have “sucker” written all over them – and since, although my original 24-hour deadline for “confirming my account” expired roughly three weeks ago, I am still in business – I routinely blow away the annoyance.

BDN computer honcho Phil Joyce assures me that there is no such animal as the “Bangor Daily News Securities Department” at the newspaper, attributing my unwanted e-mail to “some moron with nothing better to do.” I should continue to make good use of my computer’s delete key, he advises. “And always be suspicious of your e-mail. Be very suspicious …”

When I checked my e-mail earlier this week the 88 messages in the system took 18 minutes to download, prompting me to be suspicious, in spades. Eighty-one of the messages were garbage. Message No. 88 was from the outfit that actually does handle my e-mail account. It warned me that my e-mailbox was filled to overflowing and was automatically bouncing more e-mail waiting to get in.

If I wanted to stay on the good side of management, I was advised, I should immediately begin eliminating stuff from my e-mailbox in a ruthless purge rivaling any that the late Russian dictator Joseph Stalin ever unleashed upon his political enemies.

And so I did. But I have little doubt that within a week – thanks to spammers and scammers jamming my circuits – I’ll be hauled back on the carpet and admonished to smarten up all over again.

With each deluge of incoming spam my battered 1948 Royal manual typewriter looks better as a means of communicating with the outside world.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward’s e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.