Filing a Consumer Complaint

Law enforcement actions are taken by the Attorney General to protect the public good and to ensure a fair market place.

However, for individual consumer complaints, the Bureau of Consumer Frauds and Protection offers an informal dispute resolution program for complaints against a merchant or business.

Although the Attorney General’s Office will do its best to assist you, we are not authorized to represent individual consumers in court or provide legal or financial advice.

If you need a lawyer, please consult with your county bar association.

To access complaint forms you will need Adobe PDF reader. You can download Adobe PDF Reader from Adobe Systems.

File Your Consumer Complaint:

Executive Offices

Please remember the following:

• We need complaints in writing and on our complaint form.
• For consumer complaints, we encourage you to try to resolve the dispute with the company or individual before filing a complaint with us.
• Please state your complaint clearly and concisely. You should enclose copies of all relevant documents.
• Do not send us any original documents.
• Filing a false complaint is a Class A Misdemeanor.

Please understand that in order to resolve your complaint we may send a copy of your letter to the person or firm you are complaining about.

If you have questions concerning your individual legal rights or responsibilities you should contact a private attorney.

Generally, the mediation service is not available for:

• Complaints between businesses
• In cases where the consumer has already gone to court
• Where a judge has already issued a judgment
• If a private attorney represents the consumer
• If the dispute is between private parties - that is, not between an individual and a business.

If We Cannot Provide Any Immediate Assistance

If your concern is not one that we can assist you with, we may either refer you to another government agency which may be able to assist you or just note it in our records.

We look for trends or patterns of fraudulent and deceptive business practices.  We may then be able to take legal action on behalf of all New York consumers who are victims of the unfair or deceptive practices we learn about.

The Attorney General does not have jurisdiction over many areas of the law.  For an extensive list of other agencies that may be able to assist you, please click here