*Foot Notes

In this week’s Footnotes:

Maybe it’s your ex-spouse’s brother always calling asking for money? Or it could be an old boyfriend who’s being spooky. Whatever the reason, you want a caller ID box in order to screen your calls. First, your phone company will charge $6.50 per month ($7.50 for businesses) for the service. Then you need to buy the caller ID box itself. It displays the name and number of the person calling you. These range in price from about $19.95 to about $100. Some new phones come with caller ID and start at about $90.

* But suppose you feel your privacy is being violated when you call someone who has caller ID? Is there anything you can do? The phone company offers two options: selective or complete caller ID blocking. With complete blocking, every number you dial will be read as anonymous on the caller ID display. But you can choose to unblock a single call by dialing 82 before the number. With selective blocking, when you want your number blocked from being displayed on someone’s caller ID, just dial 67 before dialing the number and it will read as anonymous on the display.

And, if you don’t want any of these anonymous calls ringing on your phone, you can have the telephone company put a service called anonymous call rejection on your line. In other words, if the caller won’t let himself be identified, then you won’t have to talk to him.

* Once the tool of political campaigns and shady enterprises, paper shredders have found their way into the mainstream home-office market. Who knows what valuable information the criminal mind can glean from your trash? (Many sources of potential ruin and ridicule, that’s what!) Today, paper shredders range in price from about $29.95 to more than $200. Cheaper models vertically slice one to three sheets at a time, while the more expensive ones can crisscross-cut five to 10 sheets at once.