�Are we independent?�

In many respects we are. One of the things that first struck me when I started looking at the various laws that protect us as consumers was how well protected we are. The Consumer Protection Act and Regulations offer us a wide range of weapons to defend ourselves. When supporting consumers, we probably mention one or more of the Regulations at least every day.

The Control of Goods Act and then the subsequent, and horribly named, Control of Goods Act (Marking of Goods) Regulations were remarkably useful. It’s those Regulations that say that when goods are offered for sale on credit or any form of “deferred payment” that any advertisement must disclose “the total amount to be paid”. When we started Consumer Watchdog all those years ago, this rule was ignored by ALL the stores. All of them. All they mentioned was the value of the instalments you had to make and how many months the torture would last for.