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.
La Palma is a city located in northern Orange County, California. The population was 15,408 at the 2000 census. It was originally incorporated as Dairyland, and was one of three dairy cities in the region (the other two being Dairy Valley in Cerritos and Dairy City in Cypress) but when the dairies moved east in the 1960s its name was changed to La Palma. La Palma was listed in 2007 as the 16th best place to live among small cities (50,000 or less) in the United States by Money Magazine. The telephone area code for La Palma is primarily 714 with a small portion of the city in the 562 area code (bordering Cerritos). The postal ZIP code is 90623.