THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 23, 1995 TAG: 9510230055
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Consumer activists say the loss of a toll-free complaint hot line and other cuts at the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services have gutted what already was a tiny consumer-protection force.
On July 1, the state consumer office shut down the hot line, which received about 3,000 calls a month.
Republican Gov. George F. Allen didn't put funding for the hot line into his state budget proposal last winter, and a Democratic bill to restore funding for the ``800'' number stalled in a General Assembly subcommittee.
The Allen administration's attitude toward consumer fraud and false advertising is ``consumer beware - consumer be damned,'' said Del. Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville.
Carlton Courter, state commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, said the hot line ``was just not a priority with the agency.'' The service costs about $70,000 a year to run.
But the state is still committed to protecting consumers, Courter said. The department is ``re-engineering'' to better serve its customers - consumers and farmers alike, he said.
``I'm not running or shirking those responsibilities toward consumer protection,'' Courter said.
The hot line's survival was shaky even during Democratic administrations, Courter said. It was cut off in late 1990 under then-Gov. Douglas Wilder. It was resurrected in July 1994 after Van Yahres and other Democratic legislators put in specific funding.
A study released last month by the Virginia Citizens Consumer Coalition reported that the department plans to reduce its number of consumer-affairs positions - which totaled 27 before Allen's election in 1993 - to 13 by next summer.
Courter said he expects the final total for consumer staffing to be closer to 15 than 13.
David Rubinstein, director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, said the cuts hurt because people with complaints already have few places to go.
Disputes over a $600 refrigerator or a $2,000 used car aren't attractive to private attorneys, Rubinstein said, and Legal Aid clinics for the poor are overwhelmed.
The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services regulates telemarketers, charities, car-repair shops and many other businesses.
Attorney General James S. Gilmore III also enforces consumer laws, but often depends on the Agriculture Department to field the first complaints and start investigations.
Courter said the hot line shutoff won't hurt the state's overall efforts to fight fraud and other marketplace wrongdoing. The consumer office still has two regular phone lines coming in - which already were taking nearly three-quarters of the calls to the agency. by CNB