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.
North Bend is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The town was made famous by David Lynch's television series Twin Peaks (also filmed in nearby Snoqualmie. ) Since the Weyerhaeuser sawmill closed, North Bend has become an upscale bedroom community for the Eastside of Seattle, Washington, with property values more than doubling from 1997 to 2006. The population was 4,746 at the 2000 census. North Bend is home to Nintendo North Bend, the main North American production facility and distribution center for the video game console manufacturer Nintendo. Based on per capita income, one of the more reliable measures of affluence, North Bend ranks 52nd of 522 areas in the state of Washington to be ranked. The city's ZIP code is 98045.