Explain What you Want. Explain what you want the business to do: how much money should be refunded or exactly how you want a product fixed or a service performed.

Include Photocopies. Always include photocopies of documents relevant to your complaint receipts, warranties, both sides of canceled checks, contracts, etc. Do not send originals. Only send copies, except upon request of the agency to which you are making your complaint.

If you file a complaint with our office, please understand the following:

We may refer you to another agency. Part of the Division's responsibilities is to act as the central coordinating agency and clearinghouse for receiving complaints in the city and we often refer complaints to other agencies. The state or federal agency will have more expertise and/or will be better equipped to service your complaint than our office in certain categories. For example, within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, there are over twenty professional service regulatory boards that oversee those licensed to practice in that profession, ie..Real Estate, Contractors, Burial Services. In such a case, we refer the complaint to the agency best able to help.

By law, the Division of Consumer Affairs cannot make a business satisfy your complaint. Our goal with mediation is to encourage informal solutions to consumer complaints. To that end, we will make the business aware of your complaint and attempt to mediate a solution whenever possible. We offer this process as a public service, and we must rely on the voluntary cooperation of both the business and the consumer to resolve disputes.

We cannot act as your private attorney. Our specialists are not attorneys and cannot give legal advise or opinions . If you feel that you need legal advice, you will have to turn to another source such as a private attorney, legal aid society or other organization.

Formal actions might not recover money for consumers. Even if we sue a business against which you have made a complaint, we may not be able to recover any money for you.

For example, the company's practices may have affected so many people that it is impossible to prove each person's damages. A company facing a lawsuit may go out of business and the owners may not be found, or they may not be held legally responsible. Finally, a company may have used or hidden its money and other assets, leaving nothing with which to repay consumers.

In these, and other less frequent examples, we may request formal actions to stop practices even though we know we will be unable to recover consumer's money.