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Chapter 1 Outline:
1.1 What Consumer Protection Law means
1.2 Know Your Rights
1.3 Being Poor is Expensive
1.4 It’s a Jungle Out There
Introduction
Though not viewed as a traditional stand alone area of law (like criminal law, torts or contracts), rather a body of laws that impact a variety of areas of law relevant to consumers, learning about consumer protection law can benefit students and adults alike throughout their lives. Learning how consumer protection laws work to protect consumers in many different areas can be beneficial to the mental and financial health of those consumers and their families. The ability to understand the government agencies tasked with protecting consumers and the limitations those agencies face, can help consumers take matters into their own hands when they need to protect themselves.
1.1 What Consumer Protection Law Means
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe the areas of law that impact consumers
- Understand what a consumer transaction is
Consumer protection law refers to a body of laws designed to safeguard purchasers of goods and services from those goods that may be defective, and from deceptive or fraudulent business practices. When a consumer purchases an item, that consumer did so with the expectation that that product would not harm them. The laws designed to give recourse to the injured consumer vary depending on the type of item, who manufactured it, and where the alleged injury occurred. The number and scope of those laws can be dizzying. Therefore, a main purpose of this text is to help the reader make sense of and organize them in a way that is useful.
Nearly every day, if not every day, we purchase goods and services of some kind; from cups of coffee to groceries, and from cars to houses. A consumer transaction occurs when a person obtains these goods, real property, credit, or services. For example, if a consumer purchases identity theft protection service from a company like LifeLock only to have their sensitive personal information shared and exploited by those seeking access to customer information for nefarious purposes, this transaction may be covered by principles of contract law (usually through arbitration rather than normal litigation). However, because this circumstance is a consumer transaction, federal and state statutes may also come into play. What these statutes are and how they operate will be discussed in more detail in subsequent chapters.
1.2 Know Your Rights
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Understand why knowing your rights is important to your well-being
- Explain why not knowing your rights = not having them
- Describe some of the issues facing modern Americans, including students
The laws described in this textbook provide a way for individuals to receive redress for abusive business practices through legal mechanisms designed to hold sellers of goods and services accountable when profit motives take precedence ove