California Attorney General's Office outlines a guide for victims of identity theft

• It is very important to keep good notes of all conversations and records of all correspondence with your financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, including a log of the names, dates and phone number of persons you contacted.
• Contact the fraud departments of each of the three major credit bureaus and report that your identity has been stolen.
• Check FILE A POLICE REPORT WITH LOCAL POLICE OR POLICE WHERE IDENTITY THEFT OCCURRED.
• For any accounts that have been fraudulently accessed or opened, contact the billing inquiries and security departments of the appropriate creditors or financial institutions.
• Ask that old accounts be processed as "account closed at consumer's request."
• Having a "card lost or stolen" reference because when this statement is reported to credit bureaus, it can be interpreted as blaming you for the loss.
• Carefully monitor your mail and credit card bills and report immediately any new fraudulent activity to credit grantors.
• As a victim of identity theft, you may obtain a free copy of your credit report and should monitor activity every few months.
• You also may want to ask the credit bureaus to notify those who have received your credit report in the last six months in order to alert them to the disputed and erroneous information.
• This will involve disputing credit card charges with the card company by writing to the address for "billing error" disputes - not the bill payment address.
• * Fill out the request forms provided by the law enforcement agency or use the Fraudulent Account Information Request Form * Fill out the Identity Theft Affidavit * Send completed package (Info Request/ID Theft Affidavit/Police Report) to each creditor where the thief opened an account using your stolen identity.