Trading Standards

The Trading Standards, now the Trading Standards Institute (TSI was founded in 1956), formerly the Incorporated Society of Inspectors of Weights and Measures (founded in 1881), is the professional association which represents trading standards professionals in the UK and overseas.

Trading Standards performs an important and influencing role in engaging with, and making representations to, Government, UK and EU Parliamentary institutions, and key stakeholders in the local government, community, business and consumer sectors, and other regulatory agencies. TSI aims to sustain and improve consumer protection, health and wellbeing, together with the reinforcement of fair markets, facilitating business competitiveness and success.

Goals

Trading Standards has five major goals

1. To strengthen the Institute's influence and value by developing its member base.
2. To build beneficial partnerships that assist Trading Standards and those that depend on its effectiveness.
3. To raise the profile of Trading Standards.
4. To enable members to continuously develop their competencies and professionalism.
5. To capture and share intelligence and information to the added benefit of fair markets and consumer protection.

Members

Trading Standards members typically work in one of (approximately) 200 Trading Standards Offices around the United Kingdom, provided by local authorities, except in Northern Ireland, where Trading Standards is provided by central government. Trading Standards work with consumers and businesses to maintain fair trading and safety of consumer goods.

Consumer Direct

Trading Standards services work in partnership with Consumer Direct and CAB, a call centre based consumer advice service which has been available across the UK since April 2006. Consumer Direct provides a single contact point where simple enquiries may be dealt with directly and others referred to the relevant Trading Standards office.

Trading Standards

Trading Standards is the name given to local authority departments formerly known as "Weights and Measures". They were so called as their primary function was to maintain the integrity of commercial weighing and measuring by routine testing of equipment and goods.

They now deal with more diverse issues under a wide variety of Acts, Orders and Codes of Practice, as set out by central government the Food Standards Agency and the Office of Fair Trading. Such legislation includes the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, the Consumer Protection Act 1987, the Consumer Credit Act 1974, the Food Safety Act 1990 and the Price Marking Order 2004. Recent priorities include prevention of sales of counterfeit goods, sales of tobacco and alcohol to under-age buyers, and action to prevent exploitation of vulnerable consumers by scams and doorstep crime.

What Trading Standards do

The job of Trading Standards is to protect consumers and traders. To do this they:

• enforce government legislation
• offer advice to consumers via Consumer Direct
• provide advice and inspections for businesses
• deal with around 11,000 customer complaints and trade enquiries each year
• investigate offences and prosecute offenders.

Making a complaint to the Trading Standards

They handle complaints against companies or businesses. They also handle consumer complaints made by people who live in the UK.

If you need to make a complaint:

• you need to provide all the relevant details and documents
• you need to be prepared to provide statements about what has happened
• you need to if necessary, be prepared to attend court as a witness on the County Council's behalf.
• they aim to provide an initial response within five working days. Where a detailed response is needed, it will be given within 10 working days.

Fair Trading - A Consumer's Guide

Trading Standards enforces a range of consumer protection laws designed to protect consumers and traders.  

Officers monitor the quantity, price, description and quality of goods and services. They visit retail premises such as shops, pubs, restaurants, hotels and garages and check goods, prices, descriptions and signs.

Any weighing or measuring equipment such as scales, used to determine the price of goods, are also checked for accuracy. In pubs, samples of spirits are taken to check for watering down or substituted brands. Petrol pumps are checked for accuracy.

A variety of traders are visited including estate agents, to ensure accurate descriptions and dimensions of property are used, and jewellers to check that items described as gold, silver or platinum, are correctly hallmarked.

Shielding your personal information from genuine companies and fraudsters

Your name, address, telephone number, and email address are valuable. Once on a computerised list they can be bought, sold, rented or swapped.

Secure your information

Some lists are even available to anyone who is willing to pay, and this is how genuine companies are able to send you catalogues, sales advertisements, credit card offers, prize draw offers and competitions, and fraudsters are able to send you hoax letters and other scams!

How does my personal information appear on these lists?

Companies and other organisations (including those established specifically to collate and sell information) find out about you from many different sources.

• Many businesses 'rent' their mailing lists, so if you are for example a customer of a mail order catalogue, or you subscribe to a magazine, or have a credit card, then there is a chance your personal information may be made available to others for marketing purposes.
• Mailing list companies collect information from public sources such as telephone directories and the edited electoral roll. These are then collated and sold to other companies.
• If you have ever entered a competition, or filled out a questionnaire, filled in a warranty or product registration card, or been 'surveyed' by someone on then street, chances are your details will also find their way on to a mailing list.
• Email addresses can be collected with the use of programs called 'email spiders'. These 'spiders' will search the interent looking for web pages on which email addresses can be found. They will also look for email addresses in guest books, on newsgroups, message boards and chat rooms. Some spammers (senders of unwanted email) will also try to guess your email address.

What can I do to protect my personal information and stop it from appearing on mailing lists?

There are a number of straightforward and simple things you can do (or avoid doing) to protect your personal information.

• Subscribe to the mail, telephone and email preference services. By doing so you should reduce the number of unsolicited approaches you receive from genuine companies.
•  You can also contact companies direct and notify their customer service department that you do not wish your name, address, telephone number or email address to be provided to other companies. Think about contacting magazines to which you subscribe, as well as charities, nonprofit organisations and professional/trade associations to which you have either donated money or joined, and request they do the same.
• Go ex-directory and have your details removed from the telephone book.
• The electoral roll is now divided in to two parts. The full register, on which all information appears can only be supplied for certain, limited purposes, for example law enforcement - it cannot be sold for marketing purposes. The edited version however is available for general sale sand can be used for any purpose. Electors are able to choose not to have their details included on the edited register by marking a box on the annual canvass form, or on the rolling registration form.
• To reduce mailings by prize promoters, avoid participating in sweep-stakes, competitions and contests. Also avoid filling in surveys or questionnaires etc.
• Never respond to any letters or emails that you believe to be scams. If you do, you will only receive more.
• Avoid using your primary email address anywhere on any website. Instead consider using a free 'throwaway' email address.

Do you need Trading information for your Call Centre, whatever the question don’t hesistate to contact premiercallcentre.co.uk.