Knowledge of consumer rights and unfair and deceptive practices: a comparison of older and younger consumers

The problem of this study was to measure older and younger consumers' knowledge or awareness of selected consumer rights and legal protections, and their perceptions of and experience with unfair and deceptive business practices. A 34-item instrument was developed and administered by telephone to a random sample of 1,305 consumers nationwide. The data were examined by analysis of frequencies, Chi-square, and analysis of variance. The findings revealed (p<.01) that consumer knowledge was related to the age and marital status of the respondent. Married consumers and consumers aged 25-49 were the most knowledgeable about the eight consumer laws and legal protections.

Consumer experiences with unfair and deceptive business practices were related to age, marital status, and gender. Younger, married, and female consumers had experienced three or more of the unfair and deceptive business practices. Married consumers and consumers aged 25-74 are more perceptive than consumers aged 75 and over in correctly identifying a business practice as unfair or illegal. The gender of the respondent does not always influence their perceptions of whether or not a particular business practice is fair.

Significant differences existed between the knowledge score means and the age and marital status of the respondent. Significant differences existed between the experience score means and the age, marital status, and gender of the respondent.