On this blog, we’ve talked about the benefits of booking with a BC-licensed travel agent. We recently heard from a coworker how her holiday was saved by her travel agent and we thought we would share Joan’s story with you. 

If your travel agency has closed or if your travel service provider has gone out of business, we have tips for you! This information is also available in Chinese, Korean and Punjabi.

Here at Consumer Protection BC, we receive hundreds of consumer inquiries each week. They come to us through our Call Centre, through our Facebook and Twitter accounts as well as through here, on our blog. For today’s post, we thought it might be fun to post a few consumer questions (and our answers!) about the hot topic of gift cards. We’ve gotten more than 20 comments on ONE of our posts on this topic alone!

Did you know that today is the Earth Day, an annual day that’s designed to mark environmental protection? While consumer protection is our main focus here at Consumer Protection BC, we wanted to share three easy ways you can “green up” your life – saving you money while helping to protect our planet. Happy Earth Day, everyone!

With a number of student loan applicants being recent high school graduates, these kinds of loans can be a crash course in credit, repayment and all of those confusing financial terms in between! To help you make an informed decision, we’ve prepared some did-you-knows about receiving and paying back a BC student loan that we have gathered from a few sources. 

Sure, you may use credit cards frequently for your purchases, but do you understand interest rates, annual fees, liability and everything else that comes with being a credit card user? Here are a few consumer tips when it comes to signing up for a credit card – I hope you find the information useful! 

How many times have you received a text message from an unknown number, letting you know that you’ve won an all-expense-paid tropical vacation or expensive electronic, and that all you need to do is click on a link in the message to claim the prize? Seems a little too good to be true, doesn’t it? For our final Fraud Prevention Month-related blog post, we’re putting texting and app scams in the spotlight. 

We often get questions from consumers who are asking about the legitimacy of a certain business. There can be a wide variety of choices in any sector and sometimes it can be hard to know which business to frequent.  We know that here are many legitimate businesses out there who are commited to raising the bar in their industry and we want to help you make an informed purchasing decision.

It's Consumer Awareness Week this week (March 15-22, 2013). We thought we would share our top five tips of all time with you today.

Curious?

Many of us spend hours a day online – at work, at home and on the go. Unfortunately, so do Internet scammers who may be phishing for your personal information. In the spirit of March’s Fraud Prevention Month and helping consumers recognize, prevent and report fraudulent activities, today’s blog post focuses on what you might need to know about phishing scams.