Like many, I have contacted Trading Standards on several occasions, some of which are mentioned on this very site in my "Rogue Traders" section, but sadly their responses have generally been just to provide information on how to take action yourself.

The usual response you get from them is "we cannot help with civil matters", so I decided to ask them straight out what they consider to be a civil matter as it seemed to be just about everything I ever contacted them about. I have pasted their response below, as you can see  they are saying that any matter resulting from the purchase of good or services falls under "civil law".

Now what situation are you likely to contact them about that doesn't involve the purchase of goods or services? there certainly are not many I can think of, therefore anything you contact them about will automatically fall under "civil law" and thus they are effectively saying that they will not be able to help you or take any action.

Things that fall outside civil law would be cases where a trader is acting illegally or committing a criminal offence, or a health and safety issue in which case Trading Standards say they may be able to investigate or take some action, but these things do invariably take a very long time.

Like most I always thought that Trading Standards were there to protect the public from the rogue traders and rip-off merchants and that some good would come out of reporting such people to them and that they would eventually be stopped, but this doesn't appear to be the case at all as the law seems to stop them doing anything and is on the side of the criminals. Just have a look at my Sky Scammers post and see how many comments there are from people who have been duped, and in fact one of the companies mentioned have been on BBC Watchdog so they are scamming thousands of people all over the country every day. Most of the people who commented have contacted Trading Standards, and clearly fraudulently charging peoples credit cards and scaming them into signing up their services by pretending to be SKY canot be a civil matter as they are breaking the law, so one has to wonder how they been able to get away with it for so long.

To be honest I am not sure whether the fault lay with the law or with Trading standards, but either way something clealry needs to change to put a stop to these rogue traders who seem to have a "license to con" without any reprise and the public seem to have no rights when this happens other than to try and take legal action.

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Dear Mr Michaels

Thank you for your email of the 17^th April 2008.

When consumers purchase goods and/or services they are entering into a contract.

The law of Contract falls under civil law, this means that it is only the individuals within the contract that have any legal power to redress a wrong that has occurred. In this instance the redress could be an amount equivalent to the cost of putting the work right.

Trading Standards cannot take up individual cases, we offer advise to consumers and businesses on a self help basis. Advice is given based on the circumstances of each case and if a solution cannot be found then we advise people about their ultimate course of action, which is to sue in the County Court or use an alternative dispute resolution service.

Trading Standards do not offer legal representation to individuals, if you would like someone to take your case forward for you then I would advise seeking the  assistance of a solicitor. 

I am sorry that I cannot be of further assistance.

Yours Sincerely

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