This recently happened to a woman I work with and here's what she did. It's identity theft.
1. Call your local police and file a report and find out if they'll be contacting the police in the cities where the stores are located. If not, call those cities yourself and report what's happened.
2. Call the bank whose name is on the pictures of the checks (their 1-800 numbers) and report it.
3. Call the credit reporting agencies - don't they have 1-800 emergency numbers? If not, call Tuesday.
4. Call the 2 stores and let them know.

It took my co-worker about 4 months to straighten stuff out because her crook rented apts, started utilities, moved to new apts etc etc.

Most important, keep a notebook of the name, date time of each person you spoke with. If your experience is like my co-worker's, you'll be referring back to these notes.

Good luck.

"One letter had a badly photocopied image of the check in question.....it is our names, and our address, but not our bank or account."
I would be contacting THAT bank and find out who has THAT account.

Siounds like good advice above.

I'd be asking the bank in question how much I D they'd asked for when the person opened the account.

And expect a runaround, for they'll be worried about not having conducted due diligence.

You might mention thinking about contacting your lawyer.

Rattle their chain a bit.

One of the results that you may want is for them to make sure when people open accounts that they are who they say they are.

But a number of the fraudsters are careful to have proper ID.

You might ask the bank whether, digital cameras having the capacity that they have, they have set up a policy of taking a picture of everyone opening an account.

That would probably be helpful to police investigating such actions.

And that would get a number of regular consumers rather upset, as an invasion of privacy.

Let the bank stew a bit.

Maybe not drop all of that stuff in their lap the first time you call, but escalate a bit, as you get more upset with succeeding calls.

As someone said, log everything, including date, time, to whom talked, gist of conversation, what they agreed to do (or refused to), what policies they have for use in such circumstances, etc.

I do hope that you don't get too many more similar messages.

Good wishes as you pursue this issue.

ole joyful

Thanks! kec01, when we read that it might be identity theft we called the police, and they came last night to take a report.

They seem inclined to think that our thief just printed up some bogus checks (they say anything is possible with computers today) and relied on the busy holiday season so that the checks weren't run through check clearance at the stores. That would mean that they used our names and address, but don't have any other personal info. I guess that's the best case scenerio.

We also contacted the 3 credit agencies and put in a fraud alert.

Tuesday I'll call the stores and give them the police report info. The police will follow through with the bank to make sure this is not a valid account. luann and joyfulguy, I hope we don't have to lock horns with the bank, (from the logo on the photocopied check, it's a BIG bank), but if we do, we'll be getting advice from our lawyer.

Hopefully this will be resolved quickly. We've started our notebook, and we'll keep you posted!

Thanks again!