KXII - Weather - Headlines  Identity Theft: A Permanent Crime
DURANT, OK-The Federal Trade Commission said ten million
Americans fall victim to identity theft every year. One of them,
a North Texas woman, struggled for months to clean up her credit
and her reputation after her personal information was stolen
last year. Victoria Maranan sat down with her and the
investigator who cracked the case to tell us how you can protect
yourself from this permanent crime.  "It was a pain. I bet I
spent ten hours a week working on cancelling all the cards
they're trying to approve."  Just a week after Brandi Cranmer
moved to North Texas last August, she received dozens of credit
card approval requests in the mail and calls from credit
companies. She knew something was wrong.  "The scary thing was
that one of the credit card companies that contacted me to
verify my address and I found out that the person who stole my
identity at that point lived in the apartment complex behind
me," she said. "They could watch everything