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.
Port Jervis is a city in Orange County, New York. The population was 8,860 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area. The city of Port Jervis includes the point where the states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania adjoin. Port Jervis, then a part of Deerpark, was a port on the former Delaware and Hudson Canal. It is also known as the "River City. " The town is named in honor of John B. Jervis (believed by some to actually be Jarvis), the chief engineer on the canal. The communities of Deerpark, Huguenot, Sparrowbush, and Greenville are adjacent to Port Jervis. The towns of Montague, New Jersey and Matamoras, Pennsylvania face the city across the respective state borders. Port Jervis is the home of the last stop on the 95-mile-long (151 km) Port Jervis Line, which is a commuter railroad line from Hoboken, New Jersey and New York City that is contracted to NJ Transit by the Metro-North Commuter Railroad Company (the line itself continues on to Binghamton and Buffalo, but passenger service beyond Port Jervis was discontinued in 1966).