Doxo.com Calls Houston's Claim Of Suspicious Website 'Defamatory'

HOUSTON, TX -- Officials with Doxo.com, a third-party website that processes online payments, is denying claims by city officials that the company has failed to credit water bill payments to the municipality’s Public Works Department.

Roger Parks, the co-founder of Seattle-based Doxo.com, told Patch the issue arose from the complaint of a single customer who claimed to city officials that their payment never arrived after using Doxo.com.

“We have over 5,000 Doxo users that have the City of Houston listed as one of their billers,” Parks said. “We’ve sent them thousands of payments over multiple years without issue.”

The third-party website works much like an electronic bill pay feature through a bank. Once the payment is made, a receipt is generated to the customer.

Parks told Patch he has asked the city for a receipt from that customer, but his request has been denied. Instead, the City of Houston on Wednesday issued a press release warning water customers not to use Doxo.com and identified it as a suspicious website.

Erin Jones, public information officer for Houston Public Works, said the warning was issued after several complaints, not just one as Parks contends.

“Some have incurred late fees and some never go right through. It’s just a variety of different complaints,” Jones said. “The biggest [complaint] is not being able to contact Doxo because the contact information they provide comes right back to our customer account service here in Houston.”

Jones said the city has also tried to reach out to Doxo.com and could only reach an answering service.

“We are not hard to get a hold of,” Parks said. “This is defamatory at best about our company and it’s inappropriate.”

Public Works is advising customers to pay their water bill using the city’s bill pay website here, and to call 713-371-1400 to report any billing issues.

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