What Trading Standards do
Swindon Trading Standards helps protect consumers from unfair business practices. We also help businesses understand and follow the law.
What Trading Standards does
Rogue traders and doorstep crime
We help protect consumers from rogue traders who carry out fraudulent or dangerous home maintenance or building work.
Product safety
We check that consumer goods are safe and do not present a risk to health or cause harm.
Weights and measures
We check that weighing and measuring equipment used for trade is accurate.
We also check that quantity declarations on products are accurate.
Animal feed and fertilisers
We register and inspect animal feed establishments.
We also check that animal feed and fertilisers are correctly labelled, safe to use, and do not present a risk to animals or the human food chain.
Animal health and welfare
We help protect the welfare of livestock.
We also check that livestock keepers follow disease control measures.
Illicit cigarettes, tobacco and alcohol
We work to reduce the sale of illicit cigarettes, tobacco and alcohol by shops or residents in Swindon.
Scams
We help victims of mass marketing, phishing, romance, finance, and similar scams.
We can also help with safeguarding measures where needed.
Landlords and letting agents
We help protect tenants from prohibited fees.
We also check that property agents belong to an approved redress scheme and client money protection scheme.
Fair trading
We help protect consumers from misleading claims about the price, quality, or description of goods and services.
Age-restricted sales
We carry out regular checks to make sure traders do not sell age-restricted products or services to people under the legal age.
Business advice
We give businesses advice and support on Trading Standards law.
This helps businesses understand their legal responsibilities and comply with them.
This includes Swindon businesses on the ‘Buy With Confidence’ scheme.
How we deal with businesses that break the law
Trading Standards has a range of options to deal with businesses that break the law, whether this happens deliberately or by mistake.
We cannot investigate or take action on every matter referred to us.
We prioritise our resources to deal with the issues that cause the most harm to local businesses.
Get consumer advice or make a complaint
If you need consumer advice, or you want to make a complaint, contact the Consumer Advice Service.
This service is provided through our partners at Citizens Advice.
Citizens Advice will refer your complaint to us if they think Trading Standards may need to investigate.