The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

Responding to an article in last week's Eagle, a representative of the firm "doxo" contacted The Eagle to explain the company's business model.

The article reported that some Town of Cathlamet utility customers had encountered doxo's website while searching for the town's website and used it to pay their bills online. The customers had been charged for the service and asked town staff about the fees. Clerk/Treasurer Kerrie McNally said staff hadn't heard of doxo, and the town had no arrangement with doxo for handling payments.

According to the company website, "doxo is an all-in-one, mobile-friendly, bill pay service network that enables doxo users to pay all of their billers from one login on any device. "

Users and businesses may subscribe to the service, and users may nominate companies to be in the service.

"doxo allows users to pay their billers with one account," said Roger Parks, one of the co-founders of doxo. "There are over three million doxo users paying over 45,000 billers in the US using our service."

There may or may not be fees from doxo for a given payment depending on a few factors, Parks said, such as whether or not the service provider is part of the network.

"There are 28 doxo users that currently have the Town of Cathlamet as one of the users in their doxo account and 51 with Wahkiakum PUD," Parks said.

Payments to the local utilities, which are not part of the doxo network are made through a third party. Parks said doxo sends postcards regarding the service to the unaffiliated recipients when payments are made.

This method of communication is weak, Parks commented, and it has been a challenge.

This week, McNally affirmed that town staff hadn't heard of doxo until customers called attention to the fees.

"We only have two people here at Town Hall, and neither of us has ever spoken to anyone from doxo," she said.