Consumer advice

Disputes and advice about traders

If you are a member of the public and need consumer advice about goods or services you have bought or want to make a complaint about a business, you should contact the Citizens Advice consumer service (CACS), which provides free, confidential and impartial advice on consumer problems. CACS works in partnership with Trading Standards, giving us access to its complaint data and passing matters to us within the council's remit.

You can contact the Citizens Advice consumer helpline on 0808 223 1133 or by visiting their website.

Looking for a trader to carry out some work

If you are looking for a trader, we recommend the following three trader approval schemes, which you can use to search for the type of trader that you need.

We don’t recommend any other schemes. While we cannot guarantee that nothing will go wrong, using one of these schemes to choose a trader increases the chance of things going well or problems with any service being resolved properly.

About your rights

You have different rights dependent on the issue you have. Citizens Advice lists the consumer issues they can help you with; ranging from returning faulty goods, cancelling a packaged holiday, to reporting junk mail.

For more guidance relative to you and your situation visit the consumer page on the Citizens Advice site.