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.
Geneseo is the name of a town and its village in Livingston County in western New York, USA, outside of Rochester, New York. The town's population is approximately 9,600, of which about 7,600 live in the village. The English name "Geneseo" is an anglicization of the Iroquois name for the earlier Iroquois town there, Gen-nis-he-yo (which means "beautiful valley"). Entirely contained within the western part of the town at the junction of Routes 39, 63, and U.S. 20A is the village of Geneseo, the county seat of Livingston County. A portion of the village — the Geneseo Historic District — was designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior in 1991.