During the pandemic, Janessa West began to notice a troubling pattern: certifying documents had become extremely difficult, increasing the risk of false identification and fraud—particularly in vulnerable situations like family members coercing elderly relatives to sign paperwork.
“Nobody wanted to leave their home, and many couldn’t,” says West, who opened Mobile Notary St. Louis in 2020 to address the problem. “We were doing signings through nursing home windows just to keep our distance. We stood outside in freezing temperatures to make sure people could get what they needed.”
As pandemic restrictions eased, West assumed demand for mobile services would end; that was far from the case. Business only accelerated…