Buyer beware is alive and well today. Frankly, I am very tired of having an opportunity to have my maleness enlarged, Viagra at cost, medications from Canada, a new expensive watch, or a great deal from Nigeria on making money easily. The latter, of course, depending on how much you send them. On television you get a $90 value for only $19.95. The great one is only two easy payments of $19.99. The easy payment is either very small print or pushed as “easy” payments.

I have been the 999,999 person on this Web site and have won a wonderful new plasma huge screen TV. The only problem seems to be you have 30,000 pages of questions to fill out and then you are put in the drawing for the TV. In fact, I have been the 999,999 person at least three weeks now and still no plasma TV. How individual companies get my e-mail address is way beyond me. But they sure do get them. I missed out on checking my e-mail on one of my addresses and it had 120 spam messages and 27 regular, which were all spam. I hate spam.

On television you see the product worth $99 for only $9.95. Just who puts the value on that item? Why, the individuals attempting to sell it to you for $9.95, of course. And I have a difficult time believing that something they value at $99 can be purchased for $9.99. Being a tad skeptical about this particular type of advertising is very easy for me. And some of the things that they push are not exactly something that everyone would need. Then, not only do you get one heck of a deal on the item, they then add something to it. Usually they double the order. And then they, in my opinion, get up to the true price of the item they are pushing. I feel that the prices that are shown on this type of ad are, at the least, misleading.

In fact, misleading seems to be the mantra of modern business. We used to complain a lot about door to door salesmen, then telemarketers; now we have Web marketers and TV marketers up the wazoo. In fact, I think if the cost of the TV advertising was figured in the cost of the item being sold would be, at the minimum, very little. Then they add on shipping and handling, which can be almost as much as the cost of the item itself. Used to be free shipping. In other words, the shipping and handling was figured in the advertised price. Not today.

And another question I have: Why do gasoline stations price their product with a “.99” at the end. Why not just advertise gasoline at $3 rather than $2.99? Because it looks better being $2.99 rather than $3 to the consumer. It makes us think more toward $2 rather than $3 and makes you feel better about your purchase. One time, when asked, an oil man told me that the price is what they can get for the product at the time they have it for sale. In other words, what the market will bear. If you and I are willing to still buy gasoline at $3.99 as we did at $2.99 then we will be charged $3.99. That is just the way it is, so they say.

There has always been shysters in sales. The old door to door salesman was the brunt of many a joke and complaint in my youth. The marketers of today are much more sophisticated than in my youth. They have available the computer to tell them just what the public is willing to pay. And they are more than willing to charge you and I just that, if not more.

Another thing that perturbs me is no payments for a full year. Yeah, sure, you don’t pay anything interest for six months or a year. If you believe that I have some watery ground available in Florida. There is a bridge in Brooklyn I have on the market too. Someone is paying interest for the period of time they say you aren’t. The kicker on this one is if you pay cash they deduct 10 percent or more. And if you aren’t paying interest why allow the 10 percent discount for cash?

As P. T. Barnum once said, “ There is a sucker born every minute.” We are trying our best to prove him correct today.

Watch for Bill Ward Saturdays in the Rushville Republican. Add a comment at www.rushvillerepublican.com.