Consumer protection

From LawGuru Wiki

Consumer protection is government regulation to protect the interests of consumers, for example by requiring businesses to disclose detailed information about products, particularly in areas where safety or public health is an issue, such as food. Consumer protection is linked to the idea of consumer rights (that consumers have various rights as consumers), and to consumer organizations which help consumers make better choices in the marketplace.

1 Consumer law
- 1.1 In specific countries
2 Consumer advocacy groups
3 See also
4 External links

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Consumer law

Consumer protection law or consumer law is considered an area of public law that regulates private law relationships between individual consumers and the businesses that sell them goods and services. Consumer protection covers a wide range of topics including but not necessarily limited to product liability, privacy rights, unfair business practices, fraud, misrepresentation, and other consumer/business interactions.

Such laws deal with bankruptcy, credit repair, debt repair, product safety, service contracts, bill collector regulation, pricing, utility turnoffs, consolidation and much more.

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In specific countries

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United States

Image:Cdcacarrepairnotice.jpg In the United States there are a variety of laws on the federal or state levels that deal with consumer affairs including the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Truth in Lending Act, Fair Billing Act, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and much more. Federal consumer protection laws are usually enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice.

At the state level, many states have a Department of Consumer Affairs devoted to regulating certain industries and protecting consumers who regularly use goods and services from those industries.

For example, in the U.S. state of California, the Department of Consumer Affairs [1] regulates about 2.3 million professionals in over 230 different professions through its 40 regulatory entities. In addition, California encourages its consumers to act as private attorneys general through the liberal provisions of its Consumers Legal Remedies Act, Cal. Civil Code § 1750 et seq.

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Germany

In Germany, a minister is selected for the cabinet specifically for the purpose of consumer rights and protection (Verbraucherschutzminister). As of 2005, in the cabinet of Angela Merkel, this is Horst Seehofer.

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Commonwealth nations

In the UK, consumer laws are enforced nationally by the Office of Fair Trading [2] which is the UK's consumer and competition watchdog, with a remit to make markets work well for consumers, and at a local, municipal level by Trading Standards departments.[3]. In New Zealand, it is the Ministry of Consumer Affairs [4] and the New Zealand Commerce Commission [5]. In Australia it is the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or the individual State Consumer Affairs agencies.

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Consumer advocacy groups

Consumerium - a wiki project to empower consumers
Consumers International - International NGO

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United Kingdom

Which? - formerly the Consumers Association - a consumer advocacy organisation which has substantial powers (for example to take representative actions under the Competition Act 1998) but which is primarily a lobbying organisation funded entirely by subscriptions to its regular consumer information magazine.
CAMRA - a lobbying group concerned with the tradition and quality of beer - a consumer advocacy organisation of sorts, but only in relation to a particular market sector

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