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.
Dutch John is a small unincorporated town located in eastern Daggett County, Utah, United States, about 4 miles northeast of the Flaming Gorge Dam on U.S. Route 191. The town was platted and constructed beginning in 1957 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation to house workers working on the construction of Flaming Gorge Dam. After the Dam's completion in 1964, the town became home to a smaller number of dam maintenance and operations personnel, as well as employees of the United States Forest Service. The Dutch John townsite and its buildings continued to be owned by the Bureau of Reclamation until 1998, when the town was privatized. Buildings were sold to individual landowners, and undeveloped land in the town was transferred to Daggett County. The county later completed a master plan for the Dutch John townsite, and has begun offering parcels of land for sale to developers. During the peak years of construction activity at Flaming Gorge Dam, as many as 3,500 people lived in Dutch John.