Most European countries, have their own version of consumer protection agencies, usually any kind of complaint gets sorted out, even if takes a couple months.
If they fail for whatever reason, there is still the top European one.
Most of the time I read about FTC, it appears to side with the wrong guys.
The problem is US congress has not functioned for 2 decades. They no longer pass actual laws. This means the FTC is stuck reinterpreting their existing powers to try and squeeze out regulation that they can but that's it.
Right; there was. We’d refer to that as the “enabling act” by which Congress delegates regulatory lawmaking authority to the FTC.
> The FTC isn’t supposed to create laws
You have deeply misunderstood US federal regulatory law.
> Or FTC can sue based on existing law
Yes; that’s the idea. Regulations are law.
The real question is why isn't congress doing their job? They control both the existence and funding of the FTC and additionally the laws the FTC are tasked with interpreting and enforcing. If congress is unfit for purpose they should be replaced.
As to 1, the FTC writes the laws it enforces. These laws are called regulations. As to 2, of course Congress could write laws that have to be enforced, but when it comes to regulatory agencies, Congress does quite the opposite. Instead of writing the laws concerning trade, Congress wrote an enabling act delegating this authority to the agency.
Calling for the replacement of a branch of government without understanding any of this would be avoidable with a better educational system.
I could be wrong, but IIUC, what GP meant by "If congress is unfit for purpose they should be replaced."
Is that we should vote the current congress-critters out of office and replace them with different ones -- who might actually do their job.