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.
Germanton is an unincorporated community in Forsyth and Stokes counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina, primarily in Stokes County. It is located approximately ten miles south-southwest of the Stokes County seat of Danbury, on North Carolina State Highway 65 at an altitude of 662 feet. Germanton was the county seat of Stokes County prior to Forsyth County being created from southern Stokes. Germanton was then centrally located in the middle of Stokes. Germanton was established in 1790 and is the oldest settlement in Stokes County. The town's 23 original acres were part of a 700-acre (2.8 km) tract that was granted to Jacob Lash by the Earl of Granville in 1762. American Revolutionary War Major Joseph Winston and later U.S. Congressman was a famous Germanton resident with a plantation nearby. Coal was mined in the Germanton area but was of low quality.