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.
Randolph is a village in Columbia and Dodge Counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 1,869 at the 2000 census. The village is located at the southeast corner of the Town of Randolph in Columbia County, although only a tiny portion of the village lies within the town. Most of the village lies within the Town of Westford in Dodge County. Small portions also lie within the Town of Fox Lake (also in Dodge County) to the north and the Town of Courtland in Columbia County. The Dodge County portion of Randolph is part of the Beaver Dam Micropolitan Statistical Area, while the Columbia County portion is part of the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area.