Consumer protection, as known today, has roots even in the daily lives of the Stone Age cave men. A seller sells a product to a buyer, the buyer finds the product not to be up to his satisfaction; coincidence, some would say. But is it? In the absence of definitive statistics, the instinct of a consumer living in a capitalist society would lead me to wonder if the seller intentionally did or did not do something that led to my compromised consumer satisfaction.Today’s consumerism finds its origin in the late 19th and early 20th century marketplace in the United States. The United States Congress made history in 1872 by enacting the very first of its kind consumer protection law, the mail fraud law, which makes it a punishable offence to commit mail order fraud. At best rudimentary and lacking teeth to curb anything but false advertising, this law did nothing to prevent unsafe, unhealthy and dangerous products from reaching the hands of trusting consumers.
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