Consumer Protection

Safe Products. Honest Prices. Real Choice. Real Recourse.

Our Position

Consumer protection is not anti-business. It is one of the foundations of a healthy free market.

A market is not truly free when one party can hide the price, conceal the risk, manipulate the choice, misuse personal information, prevent cancellation, or make it practically impossible for an injured consumer to obtain a remedy. Honest businesses should not be forced to compete against corporations that increase profits through deception, unsafe products, regulatory loopholes, or political influence.

The Independent Party of Delaware rejects the false choice between an unregulated marketplace dominated by powerful interests and a complicated regulatory system that burdens local businesses while the largest corporations hire lawyers to exploit its loopholes. We support clear rules of fair dealing, strong enforcement against bad actors, meaningful consumer choice, and simplified compliance for businesses acting in good faith.

Consumers should be able to know:

What a product or service will actually cost.
What they are agreeing to and for how long.
What ingredients, chemicals, risks, and limitations are involved.
How their personal information will be collected, used, and sold.
How to cancel, return, repair, or challenge a product or service.
What remedy is available when a company breaks the rules.

Government should protect consumers, preserve fair competition, and hold wrongdoers accountable - not protect politically connected industries from accountability.

The Delaware Starting Point

Delaware already has a meaningful legal foundation. The Delaware Consumer Fraud Act prohibits deception, false promises, misrepresentation, unfair practices, and the concealment or omission of material facts in connection with commerce. It also permits victims to bring a private cause of action. The Delaware Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Unit has responsibility for more than two dozen civil consumer-protection laws covering areas such as fraud, deceptive trade practices, antitrust, privacy, data security, telemarketing, and debt management. (Delaware Code)

Delaware has also enacted a Personal Data Privacy Act giving covered consumers rights to access, correct, delete, and obtain copies of their personal data and to opt out of targeted advertising, data sales, and certain automated profiling. However, enforcement is reserved to the Department of Justice, and the law expressly provides no private right of action for privacy violations. (Delaware Code)

Delaware law requires disclosures and online cancellation procedures for certain contracts containing automatic-renewal provisions. But modern subscription models, mobile applications, free trials, memberships, and recurring digital charges require broader and more consistent protections. (Delaware Code)

The challenge is therefore not to begin from nothing. It is to modernize protections, close loopholes, strengthen enforcement, and make the system understandable and usable for ordinary Delawareans.

Our Consumer Protection Principles

1. Truth Before the Transaction

The advertised price should be the real price. Material limitations, recurring charges, product risks, data practices, and cancellation terms should be disclosed before a consumer pays or becomes obligated.

2. Consent Must Be Informed and Freely Given

Silence, prechecked boxes, confusing menus, misleading buttons, or buried fine print should not be treated as meaningful consent. It should be as easy to withdraw consent as it was to provide it.

3. Consumers Must Be Free to Leave

Businesses should earn continued patronage through value and service—not through cancellation mazes, contractual traps, data lock-in, unnecessary switching costs, or the loss of products already purchased.

4. Ownership Should Mean Ownership

Consumers who purchase a product should ordinarily be permitted to repair, maintain, resell, and continue using it. Manufacturers should not use software locks, unavailable parts, or warranty threats to create unnecessary monopolies over repair.

5. Products Must Be Reasonably Safe

Manufacturers and sellers should be responsible for reasonable testing, accurate warnings, timely recalls, and disclosure of known material risks. Emerging risks should be investigated openly rather than concealed until widespread harm becomes undeniable.

6. Rules Must Protect Competition

Good consumer-protection rules level the playing field for honest small businesses. They should be clear, proportionate, and written so that compliance does not require an army of attorneys.

7. A Right Without a Remedy Is Not a Real Right

Consumers need accessible complaint procedures, timely responses, restitution, repair, refunds, appeals, and meaningful access to the courts when other remedies fail.

The IPoD Consumer Protection Agenda

1. Strengthen Enforcement and Consumer Recourse

IPoD supports modernizing Delaware’s consumer-protection system so that filing a complaint produces more than an acknowledgment email.

We support:

Adequate staffing, investigative authority, scientific expertise, and technology resources for the Consumer Protection Unit.
A single, easy-to-use Delaware consumer complaint portal capable of routing complaints to the proper agency.
A public complaint dashboard identifying recurring problems by industry and type of transaction without exposing consumers’ personal information.
Published response-time and case-resolution measurements.
Greater coordination among the Department of Justice, Public Service Commission, Insurance Department, State Bank Commissioner, Division of Public Health, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, and professional licensing boards.
Restitution to injured consumers as the first priority in enforcement settlements.
Escalating consequences for repeated, intentional, or concealed violations.
Protection of the existing right to sue under Delaware’s Consumer Fraud Act.
Recovery of reasonable legal costs when necessary to make a legitimate consumer claim economically possible.
A carefully limited remedy for actual harm caused by willful privacy violations, while preventing lawsuits based solely on harmless technical errors.
Reasonable cure periods and model compliance forms for small businesses acting in good faith, without providing a safe harbor for fraud, concealment, or threats to health and safety.

Regulated industries should not be permitted to write their own exemptions behind closed doors. Meetings, lobbying contacts, industry-drafted language, and conflicts of interest involving major consumer legislation should be publicly disclosed.

2. Require Honest Prices and Fair Contracts

Consumers should not have to proceed through multiple screens, surrender personal information, or reach the final payment page before learning the actual price.

IPoD supports:

All-in pricing: Advertised prices should include all unavoidable charges imposed by the seller.
Clear separation of mandatory charges, government taxes, and genuinely optional services.
Affirmative consent before adding warranties, insurance, donations, tips, upgrades, accessories, or other optional charges.
Prohibiting false discounts, fake countdown clocks, misleading scarcity claims, and fabricated comparison prices.
Plain-language summaries of material contract terms.
Advance notice and affirmative consent before a company makes a material change to price, duration, data use, or service.
Immediate written confirmation when a purchase, cancellation, return, or refund is completed.
Fair refund rights when goods are not delivered, services are materially misrepresented, or a seller fails to perform.
Clear disclosure when rankings, recommendations, reviews, or comparison sites are influenced by compensation.

The Federal Trade Commission has documented online “dark patterns” that disguise advertisements, make subscriptions difficult to cancel, bury mandatory fees, and manipulate consumers into surrendering money or data. Consumer choice should not be engineered through deception. (Federal Trade Commission)

Easy Cancellation

A consumer should generally be able to cancel through the same method used to subscribe. A service purchased online should be cancelable online without requiring a telephone call, certified letter, or lengthy exchange with a retention representative.

Recurring subscriptions should require:

Clear affirmative enrollment.
Disclosure of the amount and billing frequency.
A reminder before a free trial becomes paid.
Notice before a significant price increase.
A simple cancellation mechanism.
Prompt confirmation that recurring billing has ended.
Refunds for charges collected after a valid cancellation request.

3. Protect Personal Data and Regulate Digital Manipulation

People should control how their personal information is collected, retained, combined, sold, and used to influence decisions about them.

IPoD supports full enforcement of Delaware’s existing privacy rights and additional protections addressing:

Data brokers that assemble detailed consumer profiles without a direct relationship with the consumer.
Precise location, biometric, genetic, health, financial, and children’s data.
Excessive data collection unrelated to the product or service being provided.
Retention of personal information long after it is reasonably needed.
Sale or transfer of data after a consumer has requested deletion.
Reidentification of supposedly anonymous information.
Devices that collect audio, video, location, or behavioral information without a clear and necessary purpose.
Corporate use of personal data to train artificial-intelligence systems beyond the purpose for which the information was originally collected.

Algorithms and Artificial Intelligence

Companies should disclose when an automated system materially influences a consumer’s eligibility, price, insurance rate, credit terms, housing opportunity, health coverage, or access to an essential service.

Consumers should have:

A meaningful explanation of an adverse decision.
The ability to correct inaccurate data.
Access to human review.
Protection against discriminatory or arbitrary automated decisions.
Notice when they are interacting with an artificial system rather than a person.
Protection from AI-generated impersonation, voice cloning, fraudulent endorsements, fake reviews, and deceptive professional services.

Surveillance and Personalized Pricing

Dynamic pricing based on supply and demand is not the same as secretly charging different people different prices based on surveillance of their browsing history, location, credit profile, personal circumstances, or estimated desperation.

The FTC has examined systems that combine algorithms with personal information to estimate how much an individual consumer may be willing to pay. (Federal Trade Commission)

IPoD supports:

Clear disclosure when a price is personalized using consumer-specific data.
A prohibition on personalized pricing based on highly sensitive information.
Restrictions on using emergency circumstances, medical vulnerability, or financial distress to increase an individual’s price.
Consumer access to the ordinary or nonpersonalized price.
Audits of high-impact pricing systems for deception, collusion, and unlawful discrimination.
Strong antitrust enforcement when competing businesses use common pricing systems to suppress genuine competition.

4. Protect Consumers from Unsafe Products and Emerging Contaminants

Consumer protection must address not only fraud at the cash register, but also undisclosed risks contained in the products people eat, drink, wear, breathe, and use inside their homes.

Government should follow credible evidence, distinguish proven risks from unresolved questions, publish what it knows, and update policy as science develops. Scientific uncertainty should not be exaggerated to frighten the public - but it should not become an excuse for unlimited exposure or indefinite delay.

Microplastics and Nanoplastics

Microplastics are an emerging consumer-protection issue because consumers generally cannot determine whether products, packaging, water, or other materials expose them to microscopic plastic particles.

The EPA continues developing methods to evaluate the effects of microplastics and nanoplastics on human health and aquatic life. In April 2026, EPA included microplastics as a priority contaminant group in its draft Sixth Contaminant Candidate List. Inclusion identifies microplastics as a research and potential regulatory priority; it does not itself establish a drinking-water standard. (US EPA)

IPoD supports an evidence-based Delaware microplastics strategy that would:

Establish scientifically reliable monitoring of public water, selected private wells, wastewater, waterways, and other meaningful exposure pathways as validated testing methods become available.
Publish sampling methods and results in an understandable public database.
Identify the largest preventable sources of microplastic releases in Delaware.
Require disclosure of intentionally added microplastics in consumer-product categories where practical, and Warning labels on products for which microplastic shedding increases during certain behaviors (such as prolonged heat exposure to water bottles).
Phase out intentionally added microplastics in nonessential uses when effective and reasonably priced alternatives exist.
Develop reasonable transition periods and technical assistance for small businesses.
Evaluate filtration and capture technology at wastewater facilities and other major collection points.
Support research and pilot programs addressing shedding from consumer materials.
Establish truthful standards for claims such as “plastic-free,” “biodegradable,” and “compostable.”
Require manufacturers responsible for identifiable contamination to contribute to remediation rather than placing the entire cost on taxpayers and water customers.
Coordinate Delaware policy with evolving federal science and standards to avoid contradictory requirements.

The goal should be neither an indiscriminate ban on useful materials nor passive acceptance of preventable contamination. It should be measurement, disclosure, source reduction, innovation, and accountability.

PFAS and Other Persistent Chemicals

Many PFAS chemicals break down very slowly and may accumulate in people and the environment. EPA identifies possible exposure through drinking water, food, packaging, household products, personal-care products, contaminated land, and other pathways. (US EPA)

IPoD supports:

Testing and transparent reporting.
Assistance for affected public systems and private-well owners.
Phasing out nonessential uses when safer substitutes are available.
Clear product and packaging disclosures and/or Warning labels.
Protection against misleading “PFAS-free” or nontoxic claims.
Holding responsible polluters financially accountable, with appropriate due process.
Avoiding unfunded mandates that simply transfer cleanup costs to households.

Similar principles should guide policy concerning lead, heavy metals, asbestos, harmful flame retardants, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, unsafe cosmetics, contaminated food products, pharmaceutical residues, and newly identified hazards.

5. Establish a Meaningful Right to Repair

A consumer should not lose practical ownership of a product merely because the manufacturer controls the software, diagnostic code, replacement part, or repair manual.

IPoD supports a Delaware Right to Repair framework requiring manufacturers, on fair and reasonable terms, to make available:

Replacement parts.
Repair manuals and service information.
Diagnostic tools and error codes.
Necessary software and security updates.
Access for consumers and independent repair businesses comparable to that provided to authorized repair networks.

Additional protections should include:

Prohibiting a manufacturer from voiding an entire warranty merely because a consumer used an independent repair provider.
Disclosure of the expected software-support period before purchase.
Disclosure when core product functions depend on a subscription or remote server.
Protection against a manufacturer remotely disabling a lawfully purchased product without a legitimate safety, security, or legal justification.
Reasonable availability of batteries and other components likely to wear out.
Repairability information for major appliances and expensive electronic products.
Special attention to assistive technology, mobility devices, farm equipment, vehicles, and essential household appliances.

Legitimate cybersecurity, intellectual-property, and physical-safety concerns should be addressed through narrow safeguards - not used as blanket excuses to eliminate independent repair.

Right to repair protects consumers, reduces unnecessary waste, creates opportunities for local repair businesses, and prevents manufacturers from turning ownership into a permanent rental arrangement.

6. Protect Consumers in Finance, Healthcare, and Insurance

Financial Products

The real cost of borrowing should be understandable before a consumer signs.

Consumer-protection policy should address:

Payday, title, installment, and other high-cost lending.
Buy Now, Pay Later products.
Overdraft and nonsufficient-funds fees.
Credit-card penalty fees.
Repeated electronic withdrawal attempts that trigger additional charges.
Misleading teaser rates.
Debt-settlement and credit-repair services.
Debt collection involving inaccurate, undocumented, expired, or already-paid debts.
Errors in credit reports and tenant-screening reports.
Fees or delays imposed on consumers seeking access to their own money.
Financial exploitation of seniors and vulnerable adults.

Required disclosures should show the total expected repayment, annualized cost where applicable, payment schedule, late-fee structure, and consequences of default - not merely the size of the first payment.

Healthcare Billing and Coverage

Healthcare consumers often must make decisions without knowing the price and may receive bills from providers they did not knowingly select.

IPoD supports:

Good-faith cost estimates for scheduled care.
Plain, itemized bills.
Clear identification of the provider responsible for each charge.
Rapid correction of duplicate, inaccurate, or improperly coded bills.
Meaningful appeals for insurance denials.
Human review of denials generated or recommended by algorithms by qualified and licensed individuals.
Published claim-denial and appeal-overturn data.
Limits on aggressive collection while a bill is disputed.
Consumer access to negotiated and cash prices in usable formats.
Accountability for pharmacy benefit managers, insurers, hospitals, and other intermediaries that conceal pricing or shift costs without providing corresponding value.
Mandate Medical Loss Ratio reporting for Payers to be fully inclusive of transactions through all subsidiaries so what is reported is the true net expense (no more hiding profit at payer-owned pharmacies, PBMs and GPOs).

Medical debt should be treated differently from ordinary voluntary consumer borrowing, particularly when the underlying bill remains disputed or was incurred during an emergency.

Insurance

Consumers should receive a specific, understandable explanation when a claim is denied, delayed, reduced, canceled, or nonrenewed.

Rate and underwriting models should be subject to review for accuracy, fairness, and unlawful discrimination. Consumers should be able to correct erroneous data and challenge automated decisions affecting coverage or price.

Permanent Life Insurance policies that financially penalize enrollees for adverse results from a Family Medical History screen penalize normal people for something that have absolutely no control over. Ban the Family Medical History screening for PLI issuers.

7. Protect Consumers in Housing, Transportation, Utilities, and Essential Services

Housing and Home Improvement

Policy priorities should include:

Transparent rental application and screening fees.
Prompt return and itemization of security deposits.
Accurate advertising of rental conditions and mandatory charges.
Protection against deceptive tenant-screening information.
Disclosure of utility obligations and recurring community fees.
Fair treatment of manufactured-home residents and common-interest-community homeowners.
Written home-improvement contracts identifying price, scope, materials, completion expectations, payment schedule, licensing, and insurance.
Reasonable limits or safeguards for large advance contractor deposits.
Protection against incomplete contracts, false estimates, abandoned projects, mechanic’s-lien abuse, and new-home construction fraud.
Accessible remedies when contractors disappear, repeatedly delay performance, or leave unsafe work.

Delaware has already adopted home-improvement rules requiring written contracts and material disclosures. Those protections should be enforced consistently and strengthened where complaint patterns reveal continuing abuse. (State of Delaware News)

Automobiles

Vehicle transactions are among the largest purchases most households make.

IPoD supports:

All-in dealer pricing before a consumer arrives at the dealership.
Affirmative consent for add-ons, protection plans, accessories, and financing products.
Timely delivery of titles and registration documents.
Accurate disclosure of prior damage, flood history, branded titles, recalls, and known material defects.
Written repair estimates and authorization before substantial additional work.
Return of replaced parts when requested and legally permissible.
Modernized lemon-law protections.
Examination of reasonable protections for seriously defective used vehicles.
Accountability for fraudulent online vehicle sellers and unlicensed dealers.

Utilities and Telecommunications

Consumers should receive understandable bills, reliable service, and meaningful avenues for contesting charges.

Policy should address:

Electric and natural-gas supplier marketing.
Estimated billing and unexplained adjustments.
Security deposits and reconnection charges.
Broadband speeds and service-quality representations.
Equipment-rental fees.
Outage credits and prolonged service interruptions.
Unauthorized third-party charges.
Cancellation and equipment-return procedures.
Protection of medically vulnerable households during extreme conditions.
Clear disclosure of promotional prices and the price that follows the promotional period.

Priority Subtopics Requiring Consumer Protection Policy

The following areas require continuing policy development at the state, federal, or local level.

Product, Food, and Environmental Health

Microplastics and nanoplastics.
PFAS and other persistent chemicals.
Lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and other heavy metals.
BPA, phthalates, and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
Contaminants in drinking water and private wells.
Pharmaceutical and personal-care-product residues in water.
Food additives, allergens, contaminants, and deceptive health claims.
Pesticide residues and household pesticide disclosures.
Cosmetics and personal-care ingredient safety.
Children’s products, toys, furniture, and sleep products.
Lithium-ion batteries and fire risks.
Unsafe, counterfeit, or improperly labeled imported products.
Recall notification and removal of recalled products from online marketplaces.
Truthful “nontoxic,” “natural,” “green,” “recyclable,” and “biodegradable” claims.

Digital Markets and Personal Information

Consumer data privacy.
Data brokers and sale of personal profiles.
Biometric, genetic, health, financial, and location data.
Children’s and teenagers’ online privacy.
Artificial-intelligence representations and deceptive AI products.
Deepfake, voice-cloning, and impersonation scams.
Fake reviews and undisclosed paid endorsements.
Automated eligibility and claims decisions.
Algorithmic discrimination.
Surveillance and personalized pricing.
Dark patterns and manipulative website design.
In-app purchases and gaming transactions involving minors.
Cybersecurity failures, identity theft, and data-breach assistance.
Smart-home devices and undisclosed audio or video collection.

Pricing, Contracts, and Ownership

Junk fees and drip pricing.
Automatic renewals and subscription traps.
Free trials that convert into paid services.
Hidden contractual changes.
Warranties and extended-service contracts.
Right to repair.
Planned or software-enabled obsolescence.
Products dependent on remote servers or continuing subscriptions.
Forced arbitration and class-action waivers.
Gift cards, store credits, and expiration restrictions.
Ticketing, travel, lodging, delivery, and event fees.
Funeral, cemetery, and end-of-life service pricing.

Finance, Healthcare, and Insurance

Payday, title, installment, and high-cost lending.
Buy Now, Pay Later products.
Overdraft, nonsufficient-funds, and penalty fees.
Credit reporting and tenant-screening accuracy.
Debt collection and debt-buyer documentation.
Medical billing and medical debt.
Insurance claim denials and delays.
Algorithmic insurance pricing and underwriting.
Pharmacy benefit managers and prescription-drug pricing.
Profit-storage-scheme enforcement for managed care Payers and mandate for Medical Loss Ratio reporting to be inclusive of all subsidiary transactions, including payer-owned pharmacies, PBMs and GPOs.
Mortgage servicing and foreclosure practices.
Student-loan servicing.
Financial exploitation of seniors, veterans, and vulnerable adults.
Permanent Life Insurance Family Medical History screening ban.

Housing, Transportation, and Essential Services

Rental application and screening fees.
Security deposits and undisclosed rental charges.
Home-improvement and new-construction fraud.
Manufactured-home community practices.
Homeowners’ and condominium association transparency.
Automobile pricing, financing, add-ons, titles, and repairs.
Used-car condition disclosures and lemon-law coverage.
Electric and natural-gas supplier practices.
Utility billing, shutoffs, deposits, and outage remedies.
Broadband, cellular, cable, and equipment charges.
Disaster-related price gouging and fraudulent repairs.
Online marketplaces selling unsafe or counterfeit products.

A Practical Standard for New Consumer Laws

IPoD will evaluate consumer-protection proposals by asking:

Does the proposal provide consumers with truthful, useful information before they make a decision?
Does it address a demonstrated or reasonably foreseeable harm?
Does it preserve legitimate choice, innovation, and competition?
Does it hold the responsible party accountable rather than shifting costs to taxpayers?
Can an honest small business understand and follow the rule?
Can the rule be enforced consistently rather than selectively?
Does the consumer have a meaningful remedy when the rule is broken?
Has the policy been written independently of the industries it will regulate?

Consumer protection should be measured by results: fewer deceptive charges, faster restitution, safer products, clearer information, greater competition, and more power in the hands of the individual.

Our Commitment

The Independent Party of Delaware believes in free people, free enterprise, consumer choice, and fair competition. Those values require a marketplace in which prices are honest, products are reasonably safe, consent is genuine, ownership has meaning, and no corporation is powerful enough to place itself beyond accountability.

We will oppose policies that merely create paperwork, protect monopolies, or allow government and corporate insiders to write rules for their mutual benefit. We will support practical protections that empower individuals, reward honest businesses, encourage innovation, and place the cost of wrongdoing on those responsible for it.

Consumer protection is not about expanding government for its own sake. It is about fixing a system in which information, money, and political power are too often concentrated on one side of the transaction.

Delaware belongs to its people. Our only special interest is YOU.

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