Page 124 of Head Room

“Wait, I know this,” she said to my surprise.“Agents, right?”

“Registered agents,” I confirmed.“Some represent their own Wyoming business.Or if one person in a business has Wyoming residence, that person can register even if the business is elsewhere.That scenario has not presented issues that I’ve heard of.”

“But...?”Diana prodded.

I held up a finger to make her and the others wait.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

“There are commercialregistered agents who have to go through a process with the state.Some are attorneys or CPAs.Those aren’t, in general, the people we’ll talk about, either.They have other professional standards they need to keep.We’ll come back to the other commercial registered agents in a second, but first...

“The requirements to be a non-commercial registered agent are to have a physical address in Wyoming, be at least eighteen years old, keep basic information on the businesses they represent, and be available at the registered office address during business hours to receive legal papers and such.”I paused.

They all stared at me.

“That’s it?That’s all the requirements?”Diana asked.

“Yes.”

“Eighteen, have a physical address, keep certain information, and be there to receive legal papers—”

“If any come,” I inserted to Jennifer’s recap.

“—and that’s a job?What a racket.”

“They usually don’t charge a lot, say less than a hundred a year.So with ten clients—”

“But for doing nothing.”

“Where the money piles in is for the commercial registered agents.Five hundred businesses registered to one address in Lander, eight hundred to one address in Sheridan.Heck, Sheridan racked up almost seventeenthousandregistrations in nearly a blink, when its population is less than twenty thousand.”

“A chicken in every pot and a business for every resident,” Mike said.

“Pretty close.Some of the registrations are for ordinary, legit businesses.Some are not.”

“Ah,” Mike breathed, “now we’re getting to it.”

Diana narrowed her eyes at me.“Maybe.”

Innocently, I said, “Some add another layer by using real addresses of real Wyoming businesses.Then, bam, the legit business gets a notice or a legal paper, and the onus is on them to prove they’renotthis other company.Owners of the legit Wyoming businesses are responsible for the time, expense, and hassle of proving the other business isn’t them.”

“Nasty.”

“Oh, yes.A hair salon owner, a 95-year-old man, the town of Shoshoni, a college, and an empty lot, which happened to be behind the real business belonging to — you’ll love this — a state senator.All piggybacked by non-legit businesses.

“A few county assessors have helped residents who discover a stranger has claimed their address as their own, but it takes time and skill.Not all assessors have the resources and the will.”

“Cottonwood County?”Mike asked.

“Haven’t found evidence of that happening here yet.”

“Go on, Elizabeth,” Mike said.Did he sound strained?Or was that weariness?

“I thought you’d never ask.Remember, there are legit out-of-state businesses registering in Wyoming.But there are also decidedly not legit businesses taking full advantage of this system.Scammers — big, small, and in between.Especially cyber scammers.Whether they go directly for money or peddle disinformation and get paid for thatservice, they like having a U.S.address to hide behind.”

“But these registered agents—” Jennifer started, then stopped abruptly as reality caught up with her idealism.

I nodded.“As one commercial registered agent said, they’re not in the business of policing their clients.”