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.
The Town of Brookhaven is a town located in central Suffolk County, New York, USA, and stretches from the North Shore to the South Shore of Long Island. Brookhaven is part of the New York metropolitan area. The population of the town was 448,248 at the 2000 census. It is the largest town (by area, if including water area) in the state of New York, and the second most populous, exceeded only by the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County.