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.
Belpre is a city in Washington County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River. It is part of the Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna, WV-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 6,660 at the 2000 census. The city was also the second settlement in the Northwest Territory after Marietta, located just upriver and today the county seat of Washington County. The town was originally named Belle Prairie or "Beautiful Prairie. " The Steven Soderbergh film Bubble, released in 2006, was filmed in Belpre and Parkersburg using an all-local cast. total area of 3.5 square miles (9.1 km), of which, 3.5 square miles (9.1 km) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.10 km) of it (0.85%) is water.