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.
Wales is a town in Sanpete County, Utah, United States. The population was 219 at the 2000 census. The town is governed by a mayor and several council members. As of December 2008, Wales had no stores, gas stations nor stop lights. It does have a park, fire station, library and cemetery. The small mining town of Wales was named for the country of the immigrants that were sent there by Brigham Young in 1859 to mine the "rock that burns". A Native American Indian named Tabiyuna, a prominent Ute, had shown Young, then president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a small sample. Young recognized it as coal and asked if any of his group knew how to mine the coal. The Welsh immigrants, having experience with coal mining in the U.K. , were sent to the west side hills to set up mines. The community's original name was Coal Bed, but was changed to Wales in 1869. There once was a railroad depot and it was an important and busy mining center. The mines and town were abandoned when more productive mines were discovered in Scofield, Utah. Many of the present residents are descendants of the original miners. Wales lies on the west side of the Sanpete Valley, at the foot of the Sanpitch Mountains.