What we can do

Every year we receive thousands of consumer complaints through our partners the Citizens Advice Consumer Service and from other agencies. Resource constraints mean we have to prioritise the most serious cases for intervention and use the others to help us to plan our prevention work. A number of factors are used to determine how we prioritise each case.

We have a wide range of options available to us in terms of intervention, from writing to a business to advise them of their legal obligations, issuing Cautions and seeking injunctions to full prosecution. We have a duty to ensure in every case that the action taken is proportionate to the matter we are tackling. When we investigate a matter we must be sure that there is enough evidence to use in court and that the investigation would be in the public interest.

We have a comprehensive advice service for businesses, helping them to comply with the law, and also carry out inspections to ensure wider legal compliance. We use risk rating and intelligence to determine which businesses we inspect.

What we can't do

Investigate every complaint we receive

We are not able to investigate or take action on all matters reported to us. Limited resources make it essential for us to prioritise, tackling the issues which cause the most detriment to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough businesses and consumers.

Give consumer advice or advice to a business in dispute with a consumer

Our Trading Standards service can no longer provide consumer advice. The Citizen Advice Consumer Service was introduced by central government to answer all consumer enquiries on behalf of all Trading Standard services across the country. We continue to receive records of each complaint they deal with as this allows us to monitor arising issues and intervene in cases that meet our ‘priority’ criteria.

If you need consumer advice or would like to report an issue, or your business is in dispute with a consumer and you need some advice, you should contact the Citizens Advice Consumer Service on 0808 223 1133, 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, or use their online form.

Obtain redress on your behalf

The Citizens Advice Consumer Service can provide you with comprehensive, professional advice on your rights and how to obtain appropriate redress. If the business is not co-operative, then in some cases it may require you to take the matter to a civil court. We are not able to obtain redress on your behalf and we are not able to pursue cases in the civil courts for you.

Provide feedback on what you have reported to us

After you have reported a matter to the Citizens Advice consumer service we will only make contact with you if we need further information or cooperation. We will only provide feedback if formal action has been taken to deal with the matter you reported