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.
Morristown is a town in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the town population was 18,544. Its estimated population in 2004 was 18,842. It is the county seat of Morris County. Morristown became characterized as "the military capital of the American Revolution" because of its strategic role in the war for independence from Great Britain. Today this history is visible in a variety of locations throughout the town that collectively make up Morristown National Historic Park. The area was inhabited by Native Americans for more than 2,800 years prior to exploration by Europeans. The first European settlements in this portion of New Jersey were established by the Swedes and Dutch in the early 1600s where a significant trade in furs existed between the natives and the Europeans at temporary posts. It became part of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, but the English seized control of the region in 1664, which was granted to Sir George Carteret and John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, as the Province of New Jersey. In British colonial records, the first permanent European settlement at Morristown occurred in 1715, when a village was founded as New Hanover by migrants from New York and Connecticut. Morris County was created on March 15, 1739, from portions of Hunterdon County. The county was named for the popular Governor of the Province, Lewis Morris, who championed benefits for the colonists. Following the American Revolution the former colony became the state of New Jersey and almost one hundred years after the American Revolution began, Morristown was incorporated as a town by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on April 6, 1865, within Morris Township, and it was formally set off from the township in 1895.