{"id":722,"date":"2019-05-10T09:35:02","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T13:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/?p=722"},"modified":"2019-05-10T09:35:04","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T13:35:04","slug":"vermonts-businesses-are-protected-under-vermonts-consumer-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/vermonts-businesses-are-protected-under-vermonts-consumer-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Vermont&#8217;s Businesses Are Protected Under Vermont\u2019s Consumer Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/files\/2019\/05\/Copy-of-National-Small-Business-Week-Post-4.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-723\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/files\/2019\/05\/Copy-of-National-Small-Business-Week-Post-4.png 800w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/files\/2019\/05\/Copy-of-National-Small-Business-Week-Post-4-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/files\/2019\/05\/Copy-of-National-Small-Business-Week-Post-4-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/files\/2019\/05\/Copy-of-National-Small-Business-Week-Post-4-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Businesses can be consumers too! Vermont is unique in that our Consumer Protection Act defines \u201cconsumer\u201d to include businesses that are the consumer in a transaction, such as when purchasing goods or services that are not for resale <a href=\"https:\/\/legislature.vermont.gov\/statutes\/section\/09\/063\/02451a\">(9 V.S.A. \u00a7 2451a(a))<\/a>. If your business needs help, contact our Small Business Advocate by emailing <a href=\"mailto:AGO.SmallBusiness@vermont.gov\">AGO.SmallBusiness@vermont.gov<\/a> or calling <a href=\"tel:800-649-2424\">800-649-2424<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some recent\nexamples of how the Small Business Advocate has helped Vermont business\nconsumers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Small business paid a listing service for over 5\nyears of online advertising when it realized that advertiser had published the\nwrong phone number for the small business. The listing service offered to\nrefund the small business $450 to resolve the issue, but this was significantly\nless than what the small business had paid for the service. Our Small Business\nAdvocate reached out to the listing service on the small business\u2019 behalf and\nwas able to secure a refund of more than <strong>$4,000<\/strong> to recapture the costs paid for the service. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Small business attempted to cancel their lease for credit card processing equipment (the lease was entered before <a href=\"https:\/\/legislature.vermont.gov\/statutes\/section\/09\/063\/02482i\">new protections<\/a> took effect on July 1, 2018), but the leasing company claimed that the small business owner was unable to cancel the lease agreement and needed to pay the remainder of the lease term. Our Small Business Advocate reviewed the lease contract and found that it did not conform to Vermont&#8217;s Home Solicitation Sales Act (9 V.S.A. \u00a7 2454). The leasing company agreed to cancel the contract, saving the business owner more than <strong>$600<\/strong> over the course of the lease. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Small business signed up for a lead generator\nservice but was dissatisfied with the quality of the referrals they received.\nSmall business requested a refund but did not receive a response from the lead\ngenerator. Frustrated by the lack of response, they contacted our Small\nBusiness Advocate who brought the complaint to the lead generator\u2019s attention\nand facilitated a refund to the small business of nearly <strong>$300<\/strong>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Does your business\nneed help? Review our office\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ago.vermont.gov\/cap\/small-business-help\/\">webpage<\/a> for\nsmall businesses and contact our Small Business Advocate today.&nbsp; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Businesses can be consumers too! Vermont is unique in that our Consumer Protection Act defines \u201cconsumer\u201d to include businesses that are the consumer in a transaction, such as when purchasing goods or services that are not for resale (9 V.S.A. \u00a7 2451a(a)). If your business needs help, contact our Small Business Advocate by emailing AGO.SmallBusiness@vermont.gov&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/vermonts-businesses-are-protected-under-vermonts-consumer-laws\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Vermont&#8217;s Businesses Are Protected Under Vermont\u2019s Consumer Laws<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[223768],"tags":[505561,505540],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-smallbusinessweek","tag-vtsmallbusiness","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":724,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}