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.
Three Bridges is a village in Readington, New Jersey on the South Branch Raritan River, named for the three original bridges there which crossed the river. Farmers, John Vlerebone and Harriet Foster Cline were original land owners in the area of Three Bridges. They eventually sold some of their land to the Central Railroad of New Jersey for its South Branch Line. Vlerebone and Kline subdivided their land along Old York Road after 1864, which allowed a village to build up along the road. In 1885, the Lehigh Valley Railroad also built a line through Three Bridges. Numerous lines for shipping produce and a number of daily passenger lines stopped in the village in its heyday. Today, with the loss of the passenger lines, a large number of commercial businesses are gone, but there are still a number of restaurants and a branch of the Hunterdon County Library System.