Consumer advice

Working in partnership with the Citizens Advice consumer service, we receive thousands of complaints and enquiries every year. This means that we need to prioritise the most serious cases and use the others to help plan our prevention work, as we’re not able to investigate every complaint individually.

How complaints are prioritised

Our Enforcement Policy sets out how we prioritise complaints. The Service will not respond to individual complaints or address every non-compliance with businesses.

Service demand is managed through a tactical tasking process designed to target resources effectively and focus activity on those businesses who cause the greatest harm to consumers and legitimate business.

What we do

We provide wide ranging advice to businesses and inspect various types of businesses to ensure they’re trading fairly, based on risk ratings and intelligence gathered from a range of sources.

If we find a problem, there are various routes we can take, from offering advice and a timescale for a trader to come into compliance with the law, to confiscating illegal goods and even launching criminal proceedings.

What we can’t do

Give advice to members of the public

All consumer complaints should be made via the Citizens Advice consumer service. We then use this intelligence to direct our enforcement work. We may not take direct action with respect to your individual complaint.

Obtain redress on your behalf

Consumers have rights, and often if a trader breaks those rights – for example, through providing faulty goods or substandard services – the consumer is owed compensation. We do not obtain this compensation on your behalf. However, by contacting Citizens Advice consumer service, you will be given advice and assistance on how to obtain redress for yourself.

Provide feedback on the outcome of your complaint

After you’ve made a complaint or provided information to Citizens Advice we will generally only contact you if we need further information. We don’t usually provide feedback, except where officers intend to take formal action on the basis of an individual complaint.

Take action in civil cases

Many complaints about traders are about civil matters – failing to provide redress when faulty goods are sold, for example. When a breach of the law is civil it doesn’t necessarily mean that the trader has also committed a criminal offence. However, you may well be able to take your own action. If you contact the Citizens Advice consumer service, they will be able to offer advice on what action you can take.