31 Types Of Scam To End This Month!

New consumer regulations provide much better protection for all of us against door-step selling, aggressive practices, prize-draw scams and many more dodgy practices!

We already have legislation protecting us in many ways. We have protection with the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations and the Consumer Credit Act, to name just two of dozens.

So how much more protection do we need?

Well, from 26 May, we shall also have new and improved protection with The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. If a business uses any unfair practice, it should be covered under these new rules.

These regulations will be in addition to old legislation, but in some cases they amend existing rules.

The new regulations are effectively in two parts. The first part is flexible, broadly covering the dodgy practices that a business might use, such as aggressive selling. Part two is much more specific, labelling 31 practices that will always be considered unfair.

Part one

What I'm calling 'part one' prohibits misleading actions and omissions. Therefore, companies can't miss out important facts about a product or service that would affect your decision to buy.

Part one also prohibits aggressive practices that make you buy something that you normally wouldn't.

A commercial practice is misleading if it contains false information or if its presentation is likely to deceive the average customer. Even if the information is factually correct, if it is misleading, it is now covered by this regulation.

Under this broader section, 'part one', it's difficult to write about individual instances where the regulations will be useful, because there are so many possibilities.

However, two hypothetical examples that leaps to mind are after-sale care and complaint-handling. If you were misled to believe that you could expect a certain level of care, then these laws cover that.

Part two

As I say, not all the above is new, but I think it will be more simple with these amended rules. And 'part two', which specifies practices that are unfair, should certainly give consumers more confidence to complain. Out of 31 practices listed in the new regulations, here are some of the highlights:

• 'Bait' advertising is prohibited. This is when a business promotes, say, top-of-the-range DVD players for £10 a piece without admitting they just have five in stock.
• It will be illegal to say that a product is available for a limited time only, just to get a quick sale.
• It'll be illegal to make persistent unwanted sales calls or emails.
• Pyramid schemes, where you're supposed to get more money from introducing other people to the scheme than actually selling something, will be illegal under these regulations now.
• Describing a product as free when it isn't, although this doesn't include such things as the delivery costs.
• Businesses can't falsely represent themselves as a consumer. This means, for example, that fake testimonials, or blogs by companies pretending to be happy customers, will be prohibited.
• Salespeople can't visit us at our homes to sell us something after we've requested them not to.
• When we want to claim on a policy, insurers can't require us to produce documents that aren't relevant to the claim, or systematically fail to respond in order to dissuade us from pursuing the claim.
• Adverts can't exhort children to buy products, nor can it exhort them to persuade their parents to buy them.
• Prize-draw scams are prohibited.
• Fake closing-down sales are prohibited.

What does this mean to us?

As the weight of these regulations dawn on businesses, we should see a large reduction in the practices covered by both parts.

In terms of how we should respond to complaints about these practices, we should mostly behave in the same way we always have done, at least in the early stages of our complaint. As always, we complain to the company first. If that fails, we complain to any relevant ombudsman, who may be able to get us compensation.

Next, however, we are likely to be encouraged to complain to relevant self-regulating bodies, if one is appropriate, such as the Advertising Standards Authority.

Finally, we're supposed to complain to the enforcement authority, which in most instances will probably be the Office of Fair Trading, although other bodies may be relevant, such as the gas and electricity markets authority, OFGEM.

What those bodies can do is they can make the businesses change their ways. They can also fine them and get them thrown in prison. We get the satisfaction that they have been punished.

However, the enforcement authorities don't exist to ensure we're compensated. Sadly, and this is the biggest hole in these regulations, they do not yet include means of 'private redress', which means we can't use these regulations to take companies to court for breaching them. Even if an enforcing authority rules against them!

The reason given for this is, although the general feeling is that we should be able to do this, it seems politicians are concerned that us individuals will start suing every business that looks at us funny.

Currently the Law Commission is reviewing whether we should be allowed to take companies to court on this, so we should be hopeful that they'll see sense!

In the meantime, we may still be able to pursue compensation using one of the many other existing pieces of consumer legislation.

So my conclusion is...?

I think that these regulations will 'make life a lot tougher for rogues', as one Lord put it. It should help make self-regulating and enforcement bodies bolder to act, too.

If - no, let's say 'when!' - private redress is added to the regulations, I have no doubt that I'll be showing you the many ways that you can get compensation for a variety of bad practices!

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