Is there protection against being conned?

this is the second incident in less than a year. The first incident my relative met up with a stranger via Gumtree or something and swapped a VERY expense phone for one that is almost worthless. That was a serious con but we couldnt do anything about it.

If I ruled the world, the first thing I'd do is abolish insurance. Northern Ireland is possessed about claims. No one would do anything, for insurance reasons. It's almost impossible to set up your own business.

u unfortunately it's an independent 

nothing you can do i dont think.... protection of being conned is all in the hands of the individual. only yourself can stop yourself being conned. i dunno how youd protect others from it, i mean you could constantly give advice about things but youd sound patronising as alot of the advice is very common sense, such as dont buy pills or anything at all off the internet because you cant trust strangers, only trust a reliable source. sounds like your relative was conned by a shop though, which would in my mind be classed as a reliable source, but in that being a reliable source it is also protected by laws and consumer rights, pretty sure you can get them investigated and press charges. legit shops and places cannot get away with conning people, unless they are insurance brokers then yeah all insurance is a scam but you cant do anything about that as its a state enforced scam.

Yes I agree, maybe they can at least refund a more reasonable difference, £300 seems like a large mark up for a phone especially if they didn’t refurbish the battery or anything. OP- Have you looked on trading standards website for advice?

if it is a franchise contact the franchiser asking for refund

Good question. Something very similar has happened twice in the past six months.