Consumer protection refers to the laws designed to aid retail consumers of goods and services that have been improperly manufactured, delivered, performed, handled, or described. Such laws provide the retail consumer with additional protections and remedies not generally provided to merchants and others who engage in business transactions, on the premise that the consumers do not enjoy a sufficient bargaining position with respect to the businessmen with whom they deal and therefore should not be strictly limited by the legal rules that govern recovery for damages among businessmen. The overarching goal is to protect individuals and the interest of the public in general from unfair and misleading activity in business and commerce (such as false advertising and deceptive trade practices) and scams perpetrated by criminals (such as identity theft and pyramid schemes) that harm a substantial number of consumers.
Fontana is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the heart of the Inland Empire region of southern California, the City of Fontana is a fast-growing community known for its varied and colorful history, and for some of its important new local landmarks. Originally a rural town known for an abundance of chicken ranches, hog farms, and citrus and walnut orchards, over the past century Fontana has developed rapidly into a major commuter suburb for Los Angeles and other nearby cities, as well as a strategic regional hub of the trucking industry. This is arguably the result of Fontana's location at the meetingplace of several major regional thoroughfares: Interstate 10 and State Route 210 both transect the city from east to west, and Interstate 15 passes diagonally through the northwestern part of the city. These major highways have given rise to dozens of distribution centers in the city's industrial areas, where goods are brought by road and rail from the seaports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, then shipped throughout North America. While Fontana is within driving distance of several of the mountain resorts, beaches, lakes and desert areas of Southern California, the city is also becoming a destination in its own right. It is home to several newly built landmarks, such as the largest of the San Bernardino County system libraries, a renovated historic theater, a huge new municipal park, and the Auto Club Speedway, a NASCAR racetrack located on the site of the historic Kaiser Steel Mill. Fontana is also home to the Fontana Days Half Marathon and 5K run. This race is on record as the fastest half marathon course in the world. The U.S. federal Census estimates for 2006 placed Fontana's population at 170,099, but the California State Department of Finance estimated the fast-growing city's 2009 population at 189,021. This growth was primarily the result of the city's campaign to annex numerous unincorporated San Bernardino County "island" areas within its Sphere of Influence, as well as with continued suburban growth.