With the growing array of services facing consumers every day, it's getting tougher and tougher to sort things out. Add to that the move by governments across the country to deregulate and download everyday services. We hope these stories from the Marketplace files will help make the task a little easier.

• Cellphone Secrets: Marketplace gives you the insider tips the cellphone companies won't tell you about. January 23, 2005

• How to Complain: Marketplace presents “The Top 10 Tips on How to Complain.” Get better service with a little help from Marketplace.

• Dating services: Tired of the bar scene? It's no wonder many singles are turning to modern day matchmakers — dating services. Marketplace used hidden cameras to get a glimpse of the aggressive sales techniques one agency uses to sign up customers. January 23, 2002
  

• Deregulating electricity: A primer on what opening competition in electricity can mean for you. January 30, 2001
  

• Freecycle.org: Want not, waste not: Marketplace takes a look at the growing consumer phenomenon of 'freecycling': a new alternative to bringing your unwanted stuff to a landfill. February 6, 2005
  

• Funerals: How can you tell whether your local funeral parlour is actually owned by a huge American corporation that could be pressuring you to spend far more than you need to? January 16, 2002
  

• Grocery Store Blues: Something missing from your neighbourhood? Local grocery stores are disappearing, even some of the busy ones are closing down. Journalist Nora Young discovers a private business deal may be to blame. November 28, 2004

• Hitting the Roof: What happens when the home contractor you've hired gives you nothing but a headache? Marketplace meets one man behind renos-gone-wrong. February 13, 2005

• Hockey Schools: You may be surprised to learn there are no standards and no regulations as you hand over your cash to make your child a better hockey player. February 18, 2003
  

• Love & Little White Lies: More and more Canadians are turning to the internet to find love. We test the claims people make about themselves online - and follow two people who decide to go on a date. March 16, 2004

• Mining Your Business: Marketplace puts your privacy under the microscope.

• Mystery Shoppers: Inside the covert world of the 'mystery shopper,' whose job is to make your shopping experience better. January 9, 2001

• Something old, something new, something borrowed, something gay: Marketplace walks the aisles of Canada's first wedding show aimed at gays and lesbians. March 16, 2004

• Telus complaints: Complaints against this phone giant have piled up so quickly that the CRTC has ordered Telus to clean up its act. December 2, 2003

• Ticket Takers: A Marketplace price check: what's with all those concert ticket service charges? March 30, 2004

• UCC Total Home: This buying club won't let you browse its catalogues until you commit to a two year membership - at a cost of $2,300. March 6, 2002
  
  
• Underdogs: Who hasn't felt completely alone and outgunned when you've tried to get some satisfaction from a store or company? Marketplace reveals what companies do to render consumers powerless, and shows you what can you do to make big companies play by your rules. January 8, 2006

• Voice Mail Spam: Clifton Joseph checks out this new and growing nuisance. January 23, 2005