Direct marketing is convenient. You can stay at home, get what you want on TV or the Internet, and sometimes it even works well. But there are costs, real costs. And dishonest costs. Be aware of the costs, and the way you are dishonestly trapped into the costs. Be sure you're willing to risk that before you engage in the coneniences.

This isn't new, and it isn't the "fault" of modern technology. "Fault" implies causation. Your parents who are horrified at what you just spent online are likely to blame modern technology for the ease with you fell into such spending. But cons and scams have milked people of their hard earned money for centuries, way back into the Middle Ages and before. Circuses, celebrations, fairs, markets have been coming to town since what was probably earlier than recorded history. True, I've never seen an advertisement carved into a prehistoric cave, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a very clever character somewhere back in time who figured out how to get a better deal.

In the Old West we had both "snake oil" and traveling salesmen. And I bet there were equivalent characters all the way back to characterhood. I'm pretty sure that there were lots of them, across the centuries who were willing to engage in a bit of dishonesty to get that better deal. Today we call that "con" or "scam," until it gets to the level that Madoff took it. Then we're really angry about being taken so egregiously, and we call it major crime and send the poor wretch to jail.

In Europe in olden times there were the Roma, who still inhabit Europe today. They were called by the mildly derogatory name given to the poor who look a little suspicious, like they might try to pick your pocket: "Gypsies." Like all epithets, this one became a terrible stereotype, which triggers discrimnation until this very day. France has been making a special effort to drive out the impoverished, homeless Gypsies. Peripatetic bands of Roma still wander and find unoccupied land on which to locate their wagons in the old days, vehicles today.

"A Roma stands next to a caravan in a makeshift camp in Pantin, on the northern outskirts of Paris, on Sept. 10, 2010.A Roma stands next to a caravan in a makeshift camp in Pantin, on the northern outskirts of Paris, on Sept. 10, 2010. (Francois Mori/Associated Press)"

"France is facing possible legal action from the European Commission for its policy of tearing down makeshift camps and deporting hundreds of Roma." Last Updated: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 | 10:26 AM ET. CBC News

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