Dudley Trading Standards service is responsible for enforcing over 50 Acts of Parliament and over 1,000 different regulations.
We enforce legislation controlling the quantity, quality, pricing, description and safety of most goods and services.
We monitor this by visiting businesses to check on goods and services, pricing, descriptions and signs to ensure fair-trading. We may take action against businesses who disregard the law.
We also investigate a wide range of illegal trade practices and scams and are also responsible for enforcing legislation regarding the sale of age-restricted products such as fireworks, knives and tobacco, as well as certain licensing activities such as explosives and poisons storage licensing
Legislation dealt with by Trading Standards falls into the following main categories:
| Weights and Measures | Using weighing and measuring equipment for trade, controls on goods sold by quantity, labelling goods sold by quantity |
| Consumer Credit | Businesses who provide credit facilities to customers must comply with several regulations. The Consumer Credit Acts and regulations apply to businesses that, supply goods by mail order, allows customers to buy on credit or leases or hires goods. Most businesses must apply to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for a consumer credit licence before providing credit services.
Trading without a consumer credit licence is a criminal offence and can result in a fine, imprisonment or both. |
| Description of Goods | European and British law says that all products sold in this country must be labelled correctly and provide enough information for people to know exactly what they are buying. Product names and labels must not be misleading and certain food labels have to correctly specify weights, expiry dates, ingredients and nutritional content. |
| Food Safety | Controls that govern what goes into food, plus how food is labelled and described. |
| By law, a retailer is entitled to decide the price he wants to charge for his goods. The price on display is simply what the law calls an 'invitation to treat'. In the same way that you don't have to buy goods from anyone, a retailer is under no obligation to sell you anything. If you think a shop is deliberately trying to mislead you, or are unhappy at the way a shop advertises its prices, you should call Trading Standards, which has powers to investigate. |
| Underage sales | Details of age restricted goods and how to report under age sales. |
| Product Safety | Regulation of products used by consumers in every day life to ensure they are safe, CE marks, recalls, etc. |
| Misdescribed goods and services, misleading advertising, misleading prices, purchases over the internet, doorstep selling, scams, counterfeiting, etc. |
| Consumer Rights | The legal rights you have when you buy goods or services. These rights apply to goods bought or hired from a shop, street market, mail order catalogue or doorstep seller. They include goods bought in sales. |
| Overloaded Goods Vehicles | Goods vehicles that exceed permitted weights on the public highway |
