How to ensure TS comes to the party when invited.

bris

Trading standards aren't interested in you as an individual case.

They may look at the company if they get enough reports about them.

Your route is the small claims court.

GaryBC

The question I asked was carefully chosen to help me fill a specific gap in my knowledge. 
By keeping it tightly constrained discourages some of the more vociferous respondents answering questions they think I'm asking! 

jon81uk

GaryBC said:

The question I asked was carefully chosen to help me fill a specific gap in my knowledge. 
By keeping it tightly constrained discourages some of the more vociferous respondents answering questions they think I'm asking! 

But your question isn't really tightly constrained, its vague and unanswerable other than the main answer being, you can't.

If as you say it has been mentioned in parliament before you could write to your MP and councillor, but Trading Standards won't take action just because you want them too.

If you have suffered a loss then use the small claims court.

born_again

GaryBC said:

The question I asked was carefully chosen to help me fill a specific gap in my knowledge. 
By keeping it tightly constrained discourages some of the more vociferous respondents answering questions they think I'm asking! 

So to answer your questions

If I demonstrate that a business has behaved in contravention of Consumer Law, do Trading Standards have any discretion over whether or not they get involved? 

YES

Second question but related. Citizens Advice appear to function as 'Doctor's Receptionist' for Trading Standards. How do I get past the receptionist to see the doctor? 

You don't. TS do not speak to the public.


Think of them like the police. Do they investigate every crime?

MysticDad

I'm a former Trading Standards Officer so can shed a little more light on the wider question.

First off 'Trading Standards' does not really exist in law.  Your local Trading Standards service IS your Local Authority (ie City/County Council). Therefore any complaint you have about Trading Standards is like any complaint about the service your council.  They have a complaints procedure and ultimately you can escalate this to the Local Government Ombudsman (www.lgo.org.uk/) or even Judicial Review.

For  the vast majority of Local Authorities the first point of contact for a consumer rights matter is the Citizens Advice Consumer Service ("CiTA", which is distinct from your local Citizens Advice Bureau).  This is funded in part by Trading Standards and they provide rights advice on behalf of Trading Standards.  They will also pass details of the complaint to Trading Standards, either in the form of a 'Notification' or a 'Referral'.  If you try to contact your local Trading Standards team directly they will redirect you to the Citizens Advice Consumer Service.

CiTA will give you basic advice on what your rights are and will also advise you on how to progress a complaint to the small claims court.  They will also pass details on to Trading Standards and the Trading Standards service where the trader is based. 

When CiTA notify Trading Standards they do this in the form of:
- A Notification (where they view the matter as primarily Civil, such as one about a faulty product.  Most TS will read these but will rarely do anything other than log it for future intelligence purposes, such as to map the number of complaints about a trader or sector.
- A Referral (where they have identified a potential Criminal Offence).  TS will read these but have no commitment to contact you.  They may choose to contact you if they see a similar pattern of complaints and they want to gather information/evidence to take some form of action against the trader.  Sometimes this could be weeks/months after your complaint was filed.
- Referral with Commitment to Contact.  This is where CiTA consider that your complaint hits one or more of the key criteria set out to them by your local TS Service.  You will be informed when this happens.  TS will respond to you within a few days, but their response might just be to give you some further advice, take further information, or even just tell you that they have noted your complaint.  It is a commitment to contact you, not a commitment to actually do anything.  CiTA do have the ability to blue light some complaints and telephone straight through to TS where they think an immediate response is required - eg where a rogue trader is in someone's home and demanding money].

Trading Standards have a statutory duty to enforce various pieces of consumer protection legislation.  However, that does not require them to actually take action on any given identified breach.  They just have to 'consider' them, ie they have pretty much complete discretion.  TS also have powers to enforce a wider range of legislation where the do not even have a Duty to enforce.

What this in effect means is that they will get involved if they consider the matter is particularly serious AND they have the resource to deal with it.  Some TS Services have as little as 1.5 FTE staff, so pretty much have no resource to do anything at all.  Other Services are better resourced, but all have had huge cut-backs over the past 15 years.  Most of the best and most experienced officers have also moved on.

Each TS service part of the Local Authority (ie Council) and therefore operates based on local priorities.  These can be quite heavily influenced by political priorities.  For example, Counterfeit goods complaints are usually a higher priority for a Unitary city authority than it would be for a more rural County Authority.  However, most will have the following areas at their highest priorities for criminal investigation:
- Consumer Safety (dangerous goods, unroadworthy vehicles, unsafe food)
- Rogue traders who are putting consumers lives at risk or causing significant consumer detriment
- Protecting the most vulnerable consumers:  This is generally if the complainant is being financially exploited and is likely being specifically targeted by scammers.

Some TS services will also provide additional assistance to consumers who are incapable of enforcing their own civil rights in relation to a complaint.  This is where they either have some form of mental or physical disability or where they don't speak English to the extent that they can't write a complaint letter.  These days the bar for this is set very high, so they would not usually help if you had a friend/family who could write a letter for you, or if you were able to travel to a Citizens Advice Bureau.

Unless you fall into the above vulnerable category you will not get any assistance from TS in relation to your individual complaint, unless they are dealing with the trader as part of a wider criminal investigation.  Even if they are dealing with the trader in this way, their focus is on stopping further criminal offences and although they may be able to get you your money back (by persuasion or following a prosecution) the general rule is that you should use your rights to pursue this yourself through the Small Claims Court.

GaryBC

MysticDad said:

I'm a former Trading Standards Officer so can shed a little more light on the wider question.

First off 'Trading Standards' does not really exist in law.  Your local Trading Standards service IS your Local Authority (ie City/County Council). Therefore any complaint you have about Trading Standards is like any complaint about the service your council.  They have a complaints procedure and ultimately you can escalate this to the Local Government Ombudsman (www.lgo.org.uk/) or even Judicial Review.

For  the vast majority of Local Authorities the first point of contact for a consumer rights matter is the Citizens Advice Consumer Service ("CiTA", which is distinct from your local Citizens Advice Bureau).  This is funded in part by Trading Standards and they provide rights advice on behalf of Trading Standards.  They will also pass details of the complaint to Trading Standards, either in the form of a 'Notification' or a 'Referral'.  If you try to contact your local Trading Standards team directly they will redirect you to the Citizens Advice Consumer Service.

CiTA will give you basic advice on what your rights are and will also advise you on how to progress a complaint to the small claims court.  They will also pass details on to Trading Standards and the Trading Standards service where the trader is based. 

When CiTA notify Trading Standards they do this in the form of:
- A Notification (where they view the matter as primarily Civil, such as one about a faulty product.  Most TS will read these but will rarely do anything other than log it for future intelligence purposes, such as to map the number of complaints about a trader or sector.
- A Referral (where they have identified a potential Criminal Offence).  TS will read these but have no commitment to contact you.  They may choose to contact you if they see a similar pattern of complaints and they want to gather information/evidence to take some form of action against the trader.  Sometimes this could be weeks/months after your complaint was filed.
- Referral with Commitment to Contact.  This is where CiTA consider that your complaint hits one or more of the key criteria set out to them by your local TS Service.  You will be informed when this happens.  TS will respond to you within a few days, but their response might just be to give you some further advice, take further information, or even just tell you that they have noted your complaint.  It is a commitment to contact you, not a commitment to actually do anything.  CiTA do have the ability to blue light some complaints and telephone straight through to TS where they think an immediate response is required - eg where a rogue trader is in someone's home and demanding money].

Trading Standards have a statutory duty to enforce various pieces of consumer protection legislation.  However, that does not require them to actually take action on any given identified breach.  They just have to 'consider' them, ie they have pretty much complete discretion.  TS also have powers to enforce a wider range of legislation where the do not even have a Duty to enforce.

What this in effect means is that they will get involved if they consider the matter is particularly serious AND they have the resource to deal with it.  Some TS Services have as little as 1.5 FTE staff, so pretty much have no resource to do anything at all.  Other Services are better resourced, but all have had huge cut-backs over the past 15 years.  Most of the best and most experienced officers have also moved on.

Each TS service part of the Local Authority (ie Council) and therefore operates based on local priorities.  These can be quite heavily influenced by political priorities.  For example, Counterfeit goods complaints are usually a higher priority for a Unitary city authority than it would be for a more rural County Authority.  However, most will have the following areas at their highest priorities for criminal investigation:
- Consumer Safety (dangerous goods, unroadworthy vehicles, unsafe food)
- Rogue traders who are putting consumers lives at risk or causing significant consumer detriment
- Protecting the most vulnerable consumers:  This is generally if the complainant is being financially exploited and is likely being specifically targeted by scammers.

Some TS services will also provide additional assistance to consumers who are incapable of enforcing their own civil rights in relation to a complaint.  This is where they either have some form of mental or physical disability or where they don't speak English to the extent that they can't write a complaint letter.  These days the bar for this is set very high, so they would not usually help if you had a friend/family who could write a letter for you, or if you were able to travel to a Citizens Advice Bureau.

Unless you fall into the above vulnerable category you will not get any assistance from TS in relation to your individual complaint, unless they are dealing with the trader as part of a wider criminal investigation.  Even if they are dealing with the trader in this way, their focus is on stopping further criminal offences and although they may be able to get you your money back (by persuasion or following a prosecution) the general rule is that you should use your rights to pursue this yourself through the Small Claims Court.

A comprehensive explanation of how it all fits together and the various boundaries and interfaces!
Thank you. 

GaryBC

Supplementary question:

Once CAB have referred a case to Trading Standards, is there some sort of rule of thumb that can be applied along the lines 'if TS haven't been in touch by [n] weeks, chances are they're not going to'?

Their stated position is that they will only get in touch if they need to. Understandable from their point of view, but from my perspective, how long do I wait before giving up?

I know this falls very much into string measuring territory, but even the very roughest idea would help! 

eskbanker

GaryBC said:

Once CAB have referred a case to Trading Standards, is there some sort of rule of thumb that can be applied along the lines 'if TS haven't been in touch by [n] weeks, chances are they're not going to'?

Their stated position is that they will only get in touch if they need to. Understandable from their point of view, but from my perspective, how long do I wait before giving up?

But surely the point is that they only get in touch if they need to for their purposes and won't be in touch for yours?  In other words, how you choose to pursue your individual complaint is effectively independent of any TS collective action, so there's no point in waiting for contact that won't contribute to what you need to do....

GaryBC

Ok. I'll rephrase the question:
If TS are going to get in touch, roughly how long do they typically take before they do? 

eskbanker

GaryBC said:

Ok. I'll rephrase the question:
If TS are going to get in touch, roughly how long do they typically take before they do? 

Rephrasing the earlier info from the poster in the know, it varies:

• civil matter: no contact likely
• potential criminal activity: possible contact if there's a pattern forming, "could be weeks/months after your complaint was filed"
• more serious matter: "within a few days"
• very serious/urgent: "immediate"