Consumers International - Consumer Bill of Rights

Consumer Bill of Rights

On 15 March 1962 former US President John F. Kennedy said:

Consumers by definition include us all. They are the largest economic group, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. Yet they are the only important group… whose views are often not heard.

There are eight basic consumer rights which include the rights to:

  • satisfaction of basic needs – to have access to basic, essential goods and services: adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, public utilities, water and sanitation
  • safety – to be protected against products, production processes and services which are hazardous to health or life
  • information – to be given the facts needed to make an informed choice, and to be protected against dishonest or misleading advertising and labelling.
  • choice – to be able to select from a range of products and services, offered at competitive prices with an assurance of satisfactory quality
  • be heard – to have consumer interests represented in the making and execution of government policy, and in the development of products and services.
  • redress – to receive a fair settlement of just claims, including compensation for misrepresentation, shoddy goods or unsatisfactory services.
  • consumer education – to acquire knowledge and skills needed to make informed, confident choices about goods and services, while being aware of basic consumer rights and responsibilities and how to act on them.
  • a healthy environment -to live and work in an environment that is non-threatening to the well being of present and future generations.

Read more about this topic:  Consumers International

Famous quotes containing the words consumer, bill and/or rights:

    The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied ... but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.
    John Berger (b. 1926)

    The measure discriminates definitely against products which make up what has been universally considered a program of safe farming. The bill upholds as ideals of American farming the men who grow cotton, corn, rice, swine, tobacco, or wheat and nothing else. These are to be given special favors at the expense of the farmer who has toiled for years to build up a constructive farming enterprise to include a variety of crops and livestock.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)

    When we lose love, we lose also our identification with the universe and with eternal values—an identification which alone makes it possible for us to lay our lives on the altar for what we believe.
    Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 2 (1962)