About this publication. LosAngelesMobileFingerprints.com is an educational publication owned and operated by Anshin Mobile Notary & Livescan. It exists to explain how professional fingerprinting is actually performed in the field — in offices, hospitals, job sites, schools and private homes — rather than to advertise a service. If you want to understand how an onsite appointment works in practice, our commercial site explains how mobile fingerprinting appointments are arranged.
We are able to write about this subject because we answer these phone calls every working day. The observations below come from thousands of appointments across Los Angeles and from the conversations that happen before those appointments are ever booked — usually with someone who has already spent an hour trying to solve this on their own.
The question that tells us everything
Every so often, a caller will get halfway through describing what they need, stop, and ask:
“Sorry — what’s the name of your company again?”
That question is not rudeness and it is not confusion. It means the person has been dialling numbers one after another for the last half hour, most of them ringing out, and has genuinely lost track of who they are speaking to. By the time they reach a company that picks up, they have stopped keeping score.
We hear a version of this constantly. People open with “Do you do ink fingerprints, on the cards? I need the cards.” They ask “Do you guys actually travel, or do you have an office?” They say “My boss needs someone to come to him.” These are not casual enquiries. They are the questions of someone who has already been given the wrong answer somewhere else and has learned to lead with the specific thing they need.
Almost everyone assumes the hard part of fingerprinting is the appointment. It isn’t. The appointment usually takes a few minutes. The hard part is finding somebody who does the particular kind of fingerprinting the reader actually needs — and there is a structural reason that is so difficult, which almost nobody explains.
There is not one kind of fingerprinting. There are at least three.
This is the root of the problem, and most people discover it the hard way.
Electronic Live Scan
Fingerprints are captured digitally and transmitted to the California Department of Justice, and onward to the FBI when the requesting agency asks for it. This is what most providers in California offer, and for many applicants it is the correct and only thing they need. It requires a form from the requesting agency carrying an ORI number and an applicant type — without those, the submission cannot be made at all.
Ink fingerprint cards
Physical cards — the FD-258 most commonly, sometimes an SF-87 or a foreign equivalent — rolled in ink and handed to the applicant to post or deliver themselves. These are required when the destination is outside California’s Live Scan system: a federal agency, a foreign government, an embassy, an out-of-state licensing board, an international adoption file. Ink fingerprint cards are a separate skill and a separate set of supplies. A large number of Live Scan providers do not offer them at all.
FBI submission
An FBI Identity History Summary — what most people mean when they say “the FBI background check” — is a different request again, submitted through a channeler or direct to the FBI. Fewer providers still handle this.
Three different services. From the applicant’s point of view, all three are “getting fingerprinted.” From an operational point of view they involve different equipment, different paperwork and different destinations. Somebody who needs an FD-258 card for an overseas licence gains nothing from a provider who can only submit a state Live Scan, no matter how close that provider is or how good their reviews are.
Why the map cannot tell you which one a provider does
Here is the part that surprises people, and it is worth understanding because it explains why searching harder does not help.
Most people do not use any official directory. They open Google Maps or Apple Maps and search fingerprinting near me. What comes back is a short list of nearby businesses with a star rating, an address and opening hours.
Now try to narrow it. Search ink fingerprinting near me instead. Then search FD-258 fingerprint card near me. Run those three searches one after another and you will notice something: the results barely change. Largely the same handful of businesses appears each time.
That is not a coincidence and it is not the map failing at its job. It is that the map has no way to express the distinction. Business listings are sorted into categories, and for this entire field there is essentially one: Fingerprinting service. There is no category for ink card rolling. There is no category for FBI submissions. A business that only runs electronic Live Scan and a business that rolls FD-258 cards for embassies sit in exactly the same bucket, described by exactly the same label.
So the applicant does the sensible thing — gets more specific in the search box — and the system returns the same list, because the specificity has nowhere to land. Occasionally a business in a different category entirely, a notary or a shipping shop, will appear above the dedicated providers because it is paying for the placement.
Search for a federal form by name and you will often be shown a national service advertising a thousand locations across the country. That is an answer to a question nobody asked. The reader does not want a thousand locations. They want to know whether the one four miles away can roll an ink card on a Tuesday afternoon.
The official list has the same blind spot
Applicants who do find the California Department of Justice’s list of Live Scan locations usually assume it will be more precise. It is more official, but it is not more precise in the way that matters.
It is organised by county. In Los Angeles County that means a single list covering roughly ten million people, with no way to sort by how close anything is to you. The one column you can sort by is the rolling fee.
More importantly, it does not distinguish between the three services described above. Every entry appears as a Live Scan location. Nothing indicates who also rolls ink cards or who can handle a federal submission — which is precisely the information the applicant is looking for.
The list also ages. Entries still carry closure notices from the pandemic period. The page itself advises applicants to contact providers in advance to confirm current hours and fees, which is a fair warning and also an admission: the directory cannot be relied upon as a current record of who is open and what they do.
Which is why people end up on the phone
Put those two things together and the caller’s behaviour makes complete sense.
The map gives a list of businesses that all look identical. The official directory gives a longer list with the same gap. Neither can answer the one question that decides whether a journey is worth making. So the applicant starts dialling — and discovers the second problem.
Many fingerprint providers are one or two people. When that person is mid-appointment, rolling a set of prints, the phone rings out. There is nobody else to answer it. Some listings are inside another business entirely — a mailbox store, a tax office, an insurance agency — where fingerprinting is a sideline and whoever picks up may not know which services are offered.
From our experience, by the fourth or fifth unanswered call people stop asking whether a provider is nearby and start asking whether anybody is available at all. That is the moment the question changes, and it is the moment the honest answer changes with it.
The part nobody writes about mobile fingerprinting
Mobile fingerprinting is almost always explained as a convenience. The busy executive, the doctor between shifts, the parent who cannot take an afternoon off. All true, and all beside the point for the reader we are describing here.
The more common reason people end up booking a mobile appointment is simpler and less flattering to the industry: they could not establish that anyone nearby offered the service they needed.
One thing many applicants do not realise is what this does to the arithmetic. When you can see three providers on a map and any of them would do, choosing the closest is obviously correct and paying a travel fee makes no sense. But when you cannot tell which of those three does ink cards — and two of them are not answering — distance has stopped being the useful variable. The variable is certainty. A confirmed appointment with someone who has already told you they carry FD-258 cards, at a time you agreed, is worth more than a shorter drive to a maybe.
We would rather say that plainly than dress it up. Mobile service costs more, because travel costs money and time. What it removes is the guessing.
What to ask before you drive anywhere
Whether you use us or somebody else, these are the questions that save a wasted trip. Ask them on the phone, before you get in the car.
- Which service do you actually provide? Electronic Live Scan, ink cards, FBI submissions — or some combination. Do not assume a provider offers all three.
- If you need cards, name the card. FD-258, SF-87, or the form your agency sent you. A provider who rolls cards will know immediately. A provider who does not will hesitate.
- Where is this going? California DOJ, the FBI, an out-of-state board, a foreign consulate. The destination determines the method, and the method determines whether that provider can help you at all.
- Do you have my form’s requirements? For Live Scan you will need the requesting agency’s form with its ORI and applicant type. Without it, no submission can be made.
- Are you open right now, and is an appointment needed? Published hours are frequently out of date, and many providers work by appointment even when a listing says otherwise.
Applicants are often surprised at how much of a wasted afternoon those five questions prevent.
Where we fit
Anshin Mobile Notary & Livescan handles all three of the services described above — electronic Live Scan, ink fingerprint cards, and FBI submissions — both at our West Adams office and at whatever location suits the applicant. That combination is the reason a great many of our calls begin with somebody who has already tried several other numbers.
If your situation is straightforward — a standard California Live Scan, a form with a clear ORI, a provider near you who answers the phone and confirms they can do it — go to them. That is the cheaper and faster answer and we will say so. Mobile service earns its cost when the service you need is genuinely hard to locate, when several people need printing in one place, or when the person being printed cannot easily travel.
Frequently asked questions
Why do the same businesses appear whether I search for Live Scan or ink fingerprinting?
Because business listings use a single broad category for this field. There is no separate category for ink card rolling or FBI submissions, so adding those words to your search does not narrow the results in the way you would expect. The only reliable way to establish what a provider offers is to ask them directly.
Does the state’s Live Scan directory show who does ink fingerprint cards?
No. The California Department of Justice list is organised by county and shows locations, hours, rolling fees and payment methods. It does not indicate which providers also roll ink cards or handle federal submissions, and it advises applicants to confirm details with providers directly.
How do I know whether I need Live Scan or an ink card?
The requesting agency decides, and the answer is usually on the paperwork they gave you. A California agency issuing a form with an ORI number wants Live Scan. A federal agency, a foreign government, an embassy or an out-of-state board will normally want a physical card such as the FD-258. If the paperwork is ambiguous, ask the agency before you book anything.
Is mobile fingerprinting only for large organisations?
No. Group and onsite appointments are common, but a significant share of mobile appointments are for one person — frequently somebody who could not find a nearby provider offering the service they needed, or who cannot travel easily.
The point worth remembering
If you have spent an hour searching and calling and are starting to wonder whether you are doing something wrong, you are not. The tools you are using were not built to answer your question. A map can tell you that a business does fingerprinting; it cannot tell you that the business rolls the specific card your agency asked for. A county directory can list several hundred providers; it cannot tell you which of them will still be open when you arrive.
That gap is why the phone call happens, and it is why mobile fingerprinting exists for a reason that has nothing to do with luxury. Establish what you need, ask the five questions above before you travel, and the rest of it is a few minutes’ work.
This article is part of Why Fingerprinting Comes to You, where we start from the practical problem that puts someone on the phone in the first place.
Also in this section: Can Someone Come to Me?, Can I Get Fingerprinted During a Meeting? and Why It’s Faster Than People Expect.