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.
Hutchinson is a village located in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and is part of Sewickley Township, Pennsylvania. As of the 2000 census, Hutchinson had 99 single family homes, and a total population of 322. Although only about the size of a small subdivision, Hutchinson has its own post office and zip code: 15640. Hutchinson was built as a coal mining town in 1924, and is geographically located above the Hutchinson Mine. The community was named for S. P. Hutchinson, president of Westmoreland Coal Company at the time the town was built. Because it was built much later than nearby "coal patch" towns, Hutchinson was distinguished by an unusually spacious layout, in which houses had larger yards than one would find in older coal mining communities.