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.
Temple is a town in Franklin County, Maine, United States. It is located at the end of Maine State Route 43 (Temple Road), one of only two towns in Maine to be situated as such. The population was 572 at the 2000 census. The town contains a school (now the Temple Historical Society), a no longer in use store (Hodgkins Store, built in the early 20th century, which also houses a post office), a theatre (Temple Stream Theater; formerly the Congregational Church), a derelict baseball field, and a small fire station. What is now Maple Street was formerly named Cowturd Lane, due to "the smell of manure, fresh from cows walking in the road on their way to the barn and back, hanging in the air like swamp gas. " A Soldier's Son: An American Boyhood During World War II was written by Temple native and still part-time resident John E. Hodgkins about life in the town before, during and after the conflict. It was published in 2006 by Down East Books. Bill Roorbach, another Temple native, who wrote the foreword to Hodgkins' book, released his own book on Temple Stream, entitled Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey, in 2006.