[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 160 (Friday, August 19, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 48717-48718]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-16464]



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FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for OMB 
Review; Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Trade Commission.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The information collection requirements described below are 
being submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (``OMB'') for 
review, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act (``PRA''). The 
Federal Trade Commission (``FTC'' or ``Commission'') is seeking public 
comments on its proposal to conduct a survey of consumers to advance 
its understanding of the incidence of consumer fraud and to allow the 
FTC to better serve people who experience fraud. The survey is a 
follow-up to the FTC's Consumer Fraud Survey conducted in 2003 and 
released in August 2004.

DATES: Comments on the proposed information requests must be received 
on or before September 19, 2005.

ADDRESSES: Interested parties are invited to submit written comments. 
Comments should refer to ``Consumer Fraud Survey: FTC File No. 
P014412'' to facilitate the organization of comments. A comment filed 
in paper form should include this reference both in the text and on the 
envelope and should be mailed or delivered, with two complete copies, 
to the following address: Federal Trade Commission/Office of the 
Secretary, Room H-135 (Annex E), 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., 
Washington, DC 20580. Because paper mail in the Washington area and at 
the Commission is subject to delay, please consider submitting your 
comments in electronic form, as prescribed below. However, if the 
comment contains any material for which confidential treatment is 
requested, it must be filed in paper form, and the first page of the 
document must be clearly labeled ``Confidential.'' \1\ The FTC is 
requesting that any comment filed in paper form be sent by courier or 
overnight service, if possible. Alternatively, comments may be filed in 
electronic form (in ASCII format, WordPerfect, or Microsoft Word) as 
part of or as an attachment to e-mail messages directed to the 
following e-mail box: [email protected].
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    \1\ Commission Rule 4.2(d), 16 CFR 4.2(d). The comment must be 
accompanied by an explicit request for confidential treatment, 
including the factual and legal basis for the request, and must 
identify the specific portions of the comment to be withheld from 
the public record. The request will be granted or denied by the 
Commission's General Counsel, consistent with applicable law and the 
public interest. See Commission Rule 4.9(c), 16 CFR 4.9(c).
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    Comments should also be submitted to: Office of Management and 
Budget, Attention: Desk Officer for the Federal Trade Commission. 
Comments should be submitted via facsimile to (202) 395-6974 because 
U.S. Postal Mail is subject to lengthy delays due to heightened 
security precautions.
    The FTC Act and other laws the Commission administers permit the 
collection of public comments to consider and use in this proceeding as 
appropriate. All timely and responsive public comments will be 
considered by the Commission and will be available to the public on the 
FTC Web site, to the extent practicable, at http://www.ftc.gov. As a 
matter of discretion, the FTC makes every effort to remove home contact 
information for individuals from the public comments it receives before 
placing those comments on the FTC Web site. More information, including 
routine uses permitted by the Privacy Act, may be found in the FTC's 
privacy policy at http://www.ftc.gov/ftc/privacy.htm.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information 
should be addressed to Nathaniel C. Wood, Assistant Director, Office of 
Consumer and Business Education, Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal 
Trade Commission, NJ-2267, 601 New Jersey Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 
20580. Telephone: (202) 326-3407, e-mail: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 2003, OMB approved the FTC's request to 
conduct a survey on consumer fraud and assigned OMB Control Number 
3084-0125. The FTC completed the consumer research in June 2003 and 
issued its report, Consumer Fraud in the United States: An FTC Survey, 
in August 2004.\2\ On April 22, 2005, the FTC published a Federal 
Register notice seeking comments from the public concerning the 
collection of information from consumers. See 70 FR 20194. No comments 
were received. Pursuant to the OMB regulations that implement the PRA 
(5 CFR part 1320), the FTC is providing this second opportunity for 
public comment while requesting that OMB reinstate the clearance for 
the survey. All comments should be filed as prescribed in the ADDRESSES 
section above, and must be received on or before September 19, 2005.
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    \2\ The Report is available at http://www.ftc.gov/reports/consumerfraud/040805confraudrpt.pdf.
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Description of the Collection of Information and Proposed Use

    The FTC proposes to survey up to 3,700 consumers in order to gather 
specific information on the incidence of consumer fraud in the general 
population.\3\ All information will be collected on a voluntary basis, 
and the identities of the consumers will remain confidential. Subject 
to OMB approval for the survey, the FTC has contracted with a consumer 
research firm to identify consumers and conduct the survey. The results 
will assist the FTC in determining the incidence of consumer fraud in 
the general population and whether the type and frequency of consumer 
frauds is changing, and will inform the FTC about how to best combat 
consumer fraud. The survey will oversample demographic groups that the 
2003 survey found to be at an elevated risk of becoming victims of 
consumer fraud, including Hispanics, African Americans, and Native 
Americans. The purpose of the oversampling is to acquire information on 
what additional factors affect victimization within those demographic 
groups, and which frauds they are most likely to experience.
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    \3\ As indicated in the April 22, 2005 Federal Register Notice, 
the FTC staff originally anticipated surveying up to 10,000 
consumers. See 70 FR 20194. However, due to budget constraints and 
the need for oversampling, the FTC now intends only to survey up to 
3,700 consumers.
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    The FTC intends to use oversampling and a larger sample size than 
the 2003 survey to allow for a more in-depth analysis of the resulting 
data. The additional data points will allow for statistically 
significant samples for particular types of fraud and particular 
demographic characteristics. The questions will be very similar to the 
2003 survey so that the results from the 2003 survey can be used as a 
baseline for a time-series analysis.\4\ The FTC may choose to conduct 
another follow-up survey in approximately two years.
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    \4\ The survey instrument for the 2003 survey is attached as 
Appendix A to the Report.
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Estimated Hours Burden

    The FTC will pretest the survey on approximately 100 respondents to 
ensure that all questions are easily understood. This pretest will take 
approximately 15 minutes per person and 25 hours as a whole (100 
respondents x 15 minutes each). Answering the consumer survey will 
require approximately 15 minutes per respondent and 925 hours as a 
whole (3,700 respondents x 15 minutes each). Thus, cumulative total 
burden hours for the first year of the clearance will approximate 950 
hours.

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Estimated Cost Burden

    The cost per respondent should be negligible. Participation is 
voluntary and will not require start-up, capital, or labor expenditures 
by respondents.

Christian S. White,
Acting General Counsel.
[FR Doc. 05-16464 Filed 8-18-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6750-01-P