Caveat Emptor. Surely a code which today's worldly-wise consumer takes into account. With marketing pitches coming from every direction, people must by now have a well-developed cynicism of the latest "offer".
Just watch the TV shopping channels, where full fitness and an amazingly shaped stomach are on offer for an investment of just five minutes a day (and £59.99 for the necessary gizmo). Not to mention a wonderful array of versatile shopping utensils, inflatable beds and various devices for the painless removal of hair. There's a bargain in there somewhere, no doubt, but if you pay your money you take your chances.
No "regulatory body" or "guidelines" will protect people from buying exercise machines that end up gathering dust in the back bedroom. And, despite the protests of the Environment Minister, Noel Dempsey, at a new lending policy from Bank of Ireland, there are no rules to protect the mortgage lender. The Minister got some mileage by warning Bank of Ireland it shouldn't lend so much to borrowers. Young first-time buyers might be enticed into borrowing too much, he claimed, and we risked heading for a British-style "crash".
All good copy, of course. "Minister steps in to protect vulnerable young borrowers from big bad banks."
The Minister is correct that it is the job of the Central Bank to ensure that the banks do not lend too much. However, its role is to ensure that banks don't go bust and, while it wants to avoid further house-price inflation, it has no brief to look after the interests of the consumer, a fact highlighted time and time again in the debate on financial regulation.
And, despite having a report on the issue from an expert group since June, the Government has yet to decide what to do on the issue of consumer protection in financial services. No doubt the summer holidays intervened.
Whatever arrangements are put in place for regulating the financial sector, however, a key responsibility lies with the borrower. Is it too much to expect the person taking out a mortgage to calculate what might happen if interest rates go up by a few percentage points? And then to work out, based on their own salary expectations, whether they might be able to afford it?
There is a responsibility on the lender not to push unreasonable sums of money at people. But, equally, the borrower must be responsible for not taking on too much. In the London of the late 1980s, of course, people did borrow too much and got hit hard when interest rates rose sharply.
But times are different now. Interest rates may rise, but they should not shoot upwards. We are now a region in a large euro-zone economy and, while euro rates may rise over the next year or two, there is no reason to expect an increase of, say, more than two to three percentage points at most. With most lenders having cut interest rates by over one percentage point in response to increased competition in the market, most borrowers in a year's time will be, at best, no worse off than they were a few months ago.
It is a reasonably favourable outlook for borrowers. But the health warning remains. Banks are like any other retailer and will push as much money as they can at consumers, no matter what guidelines or regulations are in place. It is up to them to take a reasonable view on what they can afford to repay.
Those who run into problems repaying loans because of unforeseen difficulties deserve sympathy, of course. Which is more than can be said for the whining Eircom investors who have featured recently on the airwaves. Telecom, now Eircom, was sold as a "sure thing", they plead, and look at us now with our holdings worth less than they were when it floated.
But what did they expect the Government, the seller of the shares, to do? The marketing campaign was slick, and no -one complained when the shares shot up to more than €5 soon after the float. Many people sold out at a fat profit. And it is simply a fact of life that share prices fall as well as rise.
There have been suggestions on radio shows and elsewhere that the Government, the company, someone, should step in and buy the shares to push up their price. Or that the company should declare a special dividend to compensate investors for the price fall. Or that there should be an extraordinary general meeting called to discuss the "crisis".
It is extraordinary to think people made such suggestions with a straight face. Buying shares involves taking a risk in the hope of getting a reasonably substantial reward. The risk is that the share might fall, which can happen for a whole range of reasons from poor management to market trends. And this risk is the price investors pay for the potential reward offered by a rising share price and healthy dividends.
It is far too early to say whether Eircom shares will work out as a good investment. They already have, of course, for those who sold out in the first couple of weeks. And if Eircom's management does a good job - and the stock markets remain reasonably strong - then the share may well become a good long-term investment.
But, in the meantime, Eircom investors have no right to expect the proverbial free lunch.
Making their own way is something consumers will have to get increasingly used to. In many areas of the financial marketplace, competition is increasing choice and there is more and more of an onus on consumers to make up their own minds.
A few years ago most savers put their money in the bank. Now, with deposit rates at very low levels and unlikely to rise much, those who want to earn any kind of decent return have to look at other avenues, such as the stock market. (Lesson 1: Don't put all your eggs in one hyped flotation.)
In health insurance, the choice used to be between "Plan C" and "Plan D" in the VHI. Competition has already come into the market from BUPA, and the proposed new legislation will bring in more new competitors and a new range of products. And in pensions the system of diverting a lump sum on retirement to purchase an annuity is gradually being eroded, offering a range of options to consumers, initially to the self-employed.
In all these areas of the financial marketplace we should expect the Government to set the regulatory playing field and, in general, to protect us from crooks. But after that the advice to consumers is best summed up in the words of Mary O'Rourke to Eircom's chief executive, Alfie Kane, as the shares floated on the New York Stock Exchange and the State sold its shares: "You're on your own now, chum."
Vincent Browne is on holiday