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.
Paducah is the largest city in Kentucky's Jackson Purchase Region and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Tennessee River and the Ohio River. The population was 26,307 at the 2000 census. Twenty blocks of Downtown Paducah have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is the hub for the Paducah Micropolitan Area and the western Kentucky region, the Paducah micropolitan area includes McCracken, Ballard and Livingston counties in Kentucky and Massac County in Illinois. Paducah and Chillicothe, Missouri are the only two cities named in the world-famous song "Hooray for Hollywood", which opens the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards yearly (the Oscars). (Both cities' names were misspelled in the original lyrics to the song.)