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.
Fort Gay is a town in Wayne County, West Virginia, along the Tug Fork and Big Sandy Rivers. The town adjoins Louisa, Kentucky. The population was 819 at the 2000 census. Originally chartered in 1875 as Cassville. Its name was changed to Fort Gay in 1932, at the instigation of Wardy Lovely, who was a member of the city council as well as a local educator. The story goes that he was fed up with local wags smearing mud on the initial C from city signs, changing it to "assville". Name selected because of the location prior to the Civil War of a fort (Fort Gallup) on a hill at Louisa, Kentucky, opposite the community. Fort Gay is a part of the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, the MSA had a population of 288,649. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Kenova District goes through the western edge of town.