UPDATE: This story has been updated to reflect new information, which includes changes to the content throughout.

Doxo.com was originally reported here to be a suspected scam site after Brown County Water Utility released information cautioning customers against using the site to make online payments.

Since that initial reporting, an interview with doxo.com company representative Roger Parks and communication with Lawrence, Indiana, Superintendent of Utilities Scott Salsbery revealed that doxo.com is a legitimate site offering third-party bill and payment management.

UPDATE (11:49 a.m., Feb. 3, 2017): 

Ellen Masteller, Brown County Water Utility office/administration manager said that Roger Parks, a doxo.com spokesperson, had attempted to contact the office, but Masteller was at an appointment when he reached out.

At this point, BCWU is continuing to advise customers that the only online payment option they endorse is the one available through BrownCountyWater.com, Masteller said.

Once the credit card transaction is approved on the BCWU site, customers and the BCWU office receive a confirmation email with a receipt within seconds, and the payment is posted to the account the next business day.

There is a $0.34 transaction fee for using BCWU’s online payment option, according to their schedule of rates, along with a 2.2 percent charge on the amount paid.

There is no charge for payments made by check or bank account withdrawal to BCWU, Masteller said.

As a member-owned utility, BCWU does not absorb the cost of card transactions, as that would simply transfer the cost to the rest of the members, she said.

Masteller said that BCWU is still looking into doxo.com, and is not even certain they could endorse using such a site due to Indiana regulations regarding transaction fees and rates.

UPDATE (4 p.m., Feb. 2, 2017): 

NASHVILLE — When going to pay utility bills, links from an Internet search could be illegitimate, but a recent scare involving Brown County Water Utility has turned out to be a misunderstanding involving a legitimate payment company.

Ellen Masteller, BCWU office/administration manager, sent out a warning Feb. 2 after a customer contacted the utility regarding a bill payment, Masteller said. The customer said they had paid their bill online.

The customer reported making a payment through doxo.com, but Masteller said the utility does not have an affiliation with that site.

When Masteller looked into the claim, she discovered a page on doxo.com that had links for making online payments to not only BCWU, but other area utilities as well.

Masteller tried searching for payment options for BCWU using a variety of search engines, and every one had doxo.com in the results.

Though a search for “Brown County Water online payment” on Feb. 2 around noon returned the official page for BCWU — www.browncountywater.com — at the top of results, the doxo.com link was showing on both Google — ranked fourth — and Bing — ranked second.

Masteller said she contacted local law enforcement and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. She also reached out to Google to see about having the doxo.com site removed from results, but had not received a response from Google as of noon Feb. 2.

She also sent out an automated phone message to customers once the problem was discovered, but said that the phone message limits how much information she can present.

Masteller even found a story on a news site from Jan. 3 that had a warning from Lawrence, Indiana Mayor Steve Collier against local utility customers using the site.

But in a phone interview, doxo.com representative Roger Parks said that not only is the site a legitimate bill pay service, but that the situation with Lawrence had been cleared up, with City of Lawrence Utilities Superintendent Scott Salsbery even apologizing for everything that had happened.

Salsbery confirmed the apology, and said that Lawrence now advises their customers that they can use the doxo.com service without reservation.

Masteller could not be reached for further comment at the time this story was updated.

Parks said that his records indicate several BCWU customers currently use doxo.com to pay their water bill. He could not tell the exact number from what he had available, but said it was more than one, though fewer than 25.

Those payments are mailed out as checks by affiliate company Noventis, with the customers name and address on the envelope, he said. Outside of markings on the check indicating the processing company, there would be nothing to indicate the payment did not come directly from the customer.

When a customer makes payment with doxo.com, they are given a notice of how long the payment will take to reach the biller, Parks said.

Salsbery said that Lawrence has confirmed that it is now and was in the past receiving such checks from customers using doxo.com.

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With 20 employees, the Seattle-based doxo.com has a model for adding billers that Parks compared to Yelp.com.

Users can add companies that they pay bills to, and then that information allows other users to add those companies by name.

The process is vetted by employees, Parks said, though with 25,000 billers and 20 employees, errors may be missed for a short period of time, such as after a company changes their address or phone number.

As far as information available on the site, everything about Brown County Water Utility is currently to be up to date, including a link to the utility’s official website.

Parks said that doxo.com users can pay bills to some billers who cover the transaction fees — such as AT&T — directly and electronically for free. Those same users can pay other bills electronically through direct withdrawal from their bank accounts for free as well.

For customers who do not pay bills to a company willing to absorb the transaction fee, fees range from $2.99 and $3.99 for electronic and paper checks, to 3.5 percent with a $3.99 minimum for card payments, Parks said.

For electronic payments, doxo.com uses the same payment networks as banks do for their bill pay products, Parks said.

The company behind doxo.com started in 2008, though they launched their bill pay system in 2010, Parks said. The option to mail paper checks out to companies that are not connected to doxo.com began about a year and a half ago in response to customer requests.

In addition to BrownCountyWater.com, BCWU customers can reach the utility at 812-988-6611, or visit their offices at 5130 State Road 135 North in Bean Blossom between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. They also have a night depository.