Sheridan businesses pay price for online scams with Wyoming address

SHERIDAN — The boutique and gift shop This Joyful Home sits along Highway 14 in Ranchester — a green, barn-like building selling an array of items from local and regional artisans. In the back, the store is also home to a print shop, where employees create custom shirts, pillows, tea towels and canvas bags.

Owner Shanna White calls her business a neighborhood gift shop, and it’s kept that reputation for many years. White juggles her in-person storefront with online sales, and after more than 15 years in operation, she said she’s grown a loyal following with a long selling history and plenty of good reviews stacked on social media.

“Trust is huge when it comes to e-commerce,” White said. “But it can be very hard to build that.”

So when White received a call from a man inquiring about a missing order from Joyfulprints, White knew something was wrong. She also knew it wasn’t her company.

The man had confused White’s Ranchester-based business with Joyfulprints, an online-based retailer operating as a Wyoming-based LLC and listing 30 N. Gould St., Sheridan as its address on the Wyoming Secretary of State website.

“It’s understandable to me how they found us,” White said. “We’re not in Sheridan, but we’re pretty close… not too many businesses have ‘Joyful’ in their name, and we are a print shop.”

According to the Better Business Bureau, Joyfulprints is not currently accredited with the organization and has an average customer rating of one star. Despite no physical presence in Wyoming, the address for Joyfulprints at 30 N. Gould St. is actually the address for the company’s registered agent.

Being a registered agent — and having a Wyoming LLC — is a completely legal and legitimate business model. It allows companies to use Wyoming’s tax structure and privacy laws without physically residing in the state. 

One of Wyoming’s largest registered agent sites, at 30 N. Gould St. in Sheridan, represents close to 300,000 of Wyoming’s 830,000 LLCs. Wyoming has more LLCs per capita than any other state in the U.S.

But according to Wyoming statute, registered agents aren’t required to know much beyond basic contact information for the companies they represent. As referenced in previous reporting by The Sheridan Press, this system creates a loophole where individuals can set up shop to conduct scams and run fraudulent businesses under a Wyoming address.

Those getting stuck in the crossfires of the state’s policies and the growth of the e-commerce market are often Wyoming’s business owners and business agencies. With plenty of non-Wyoming companies claiming ties to the Cowboy State, these groups have had many run-ins with fake and fraudulent businesses imitating something else — or even imitating them.

‘They just won’t come back’

During the 2025 holiday season at downtown Sheridan’s Cottonwood Kitchen + Home, former employee Sophia Kuzara answered several phone calls from strangers asking about the cookbooks they ordered but never received.

Kuzara knew this product was not from Sheridan’s Cottonwood store. But the callers were adamant it was the same company — the website they ordered the cookbooks from listed the same name and phone number as Cottonwood’s.

“(I think) someone really created an LLC to scam people and make it look as real as possible using local businesses,” Kuzara said.

Kuzara called a registered agent company based out of 30 N. Gould St. and was disappointed with the outcome of her conversation with them. She then filed a police report, but Cottonwood’s case ended the same way many similar fraud cases do — with dead ends and no leads.

“There are no regulations that mandate the registered agent check the validity of the business using them,” Sheridan Police Department Capt. Tom Ringley said to the Press in March. “So often there are no leads for us to pursue, and almost always, none of the involved parties are in our jurisdiction.”

Kuzara said her initial reaction was disappointment, and she said it points to a larger issue for many businesses like Cottonwood.

“(There are) the optics of it. It reflects poorly on the actual business,” Kuzara said.

White said she has noticed the growth of fraudulent players on the e-commerce stage in the last decade. But she doesn’t know the full impact of Wyoming’s influx of LLCs had had on her store’s online presence.

“The LLC filings in Sheridan County — have they impacted us? I’m sure they have,” White said. “It’s just one of those things that is difficult to know. Unhappy customers, you know, 90% of them won’t (complain). They just won’t come back.”

White said she worries most for entrepreneurs just entering the online world. Without a loyal base of customers and an established online reputation, it’s trickier to not get roped in with the bad actors — especially when more than 300,000 LLC companies are already listing a Sheridan business address.

“It makes a hurdle that was already challenging that much harder,” White said.

Keeping funds local

Wyoming-based organizations who aid local businesses have to expend extra resources to ensure tax dollars aren’t being spent on out-of-state companies.

Jill Kline, state director for the Wyoming Small Business Development Center Network, said the statewide organization has plenty of programs for partnering with Wyoming’s small businesses and entrepreneurs. The team offers many services including innovation research, cybersecurity programs, government contracting, market research and free consultations from business advisors.

Kline said Wyoming SBDC staffers receive inquiries almost every day from businesses that aren’t from Wyoming. Kline said the goal of these programs is not to serve out-of-state companies with Wyoming registered agents. For this reason, she said, the organization has several research avenues to properly vet these companies and ensure they are based in the state.

“(If) it’s another state … or (if) the company is from out of the country, it’s a very slim chance they would get in our door, because we do our due diligence,” Kline said.

Wyoming does collect revenue from LLC filings. Last year, the state made $21 million just from companies registered at 30 N. Gould St., and $59.6 million from all LLC filings in 2025. This money goes into the state’s general fund.

But local commerce economies have a different type of impact. 

In Sheridan County alone, sales tax brought in about $50.5 million in fiscal year 2025, according to data from the Wyoming Administration & Information. Sheridan is also known for its entrepreneurial spirit, and in recent years, the county has led the state with the highest percentage of self-employed jobs.

Statewide, past data from Open Corporates shows no correlation between the increase of Wyoming’s LLC filings and Wyoming’s overall gross domestic product — a number that quantifies the health of Wyoming’s economy.

It strengthens Kline’s resolve that SBDC’s programs should benefit companies conducting business in Wyoming, because local companies are the businesses pouring back into their local economies.

“Our focus truly is Wyoming citizens, people who are actually here and creating jobs in Wyoming… we want jobs created in our state, and the revenue coming to our state,” she said.

This story was published on April 14, 2026.