Dallas residents frustrated by confusing new water bill system and $10,000 billing errors
Dallas residents frustrated by new water bill system
The launch of Dallas’s new "Dallas Go" water billing system has sparked widespread frustration, overwhelming the city's 311 lines with 35-minute wait times due to confusing account features, unexpected convenience fees, and massive billing errors.
DALLAS - Dallas residents are finding the city's new water billing system exasperating to navigate, and council members have been getting an earful.
Dallas Go Launch sparks long wait times
What we know:
The city's new water billing system went into place a month ago. Now thousands of Dallas residents are trying to get help navigating the site. The wait time to get through to the city's 311 system has gone from 90 seconds to 35 minutes.
The city's new water billing system, called Dallas Go, is bringing everything to a screeching halt as the city said it's getting more than 2,500 calls a day from customers trying to navigate the new system.
Council members call the new water billing system a disaster
Local perspective:
Among the confused were City Council members themselves. Dallas City Council member Bill Roth explained that one of the issues for business owners or landlords is the fact that separate emails need to be established for a single account.
"This has been a disaster," he said, "We're getting hundreds of calls to my office. They're not going to your office because they can't get to your office."
While staff vowed to provide assistance to councilwoman Lorie Blair, she was less than pleased with the offer for constituents.
"I'm going to speak from personal experience. I haven't yet to get on it. I have tried to call, and I got the run around," said Blair.
Daisy Fast, the Director of Communications and Customer Service for the City of Dallas, is encouraging residents to utilize self-service options.
"So right now we are experiencing very long hold times, and we do encourage everyone to try and utilize the self-service options, whether it's coming here in person or using the online features," said Fast.
"District eight is the furthest south that you can get. So for district eight, it's an insult to ask them to come down," said Blair.
Dallas water bill convenience fees and auto-pay security concerns
Dig deeper:
City Councilmember Cara Mendelsohn addressed how the complications of this water bill should have never reached this level of difficulty.
"To say to go on a website and look at a tutorial, we're talking about a water bill here. This should have been the easiest thing in the world. Just like when you get an iPhone, you don't really need a tutorial. It's intuitive. We've spent millions of dollars for the system that's made it harder and more problematic for people," she said.
On top of just signing up for your account, there are also complaints that customers also need to pay a convenience fee of more than three percent to pay their bill, unless they agree to have the payment automatically drafted from their account.
"I've had several constituents that have gotten bills for $5,000 or $10,000. And so, if they use auto-pay, now they're extremely worried that they're going to be drafted more because there's some kind of error that's happening," said Laura Cadena, city council member in District 6.
What's next:
During the transition period, the city is not assessing late payment charges or cutting off water.
At this time, it's not clear just how long that transition period is going to last.
The Source: Information in this article was provided by FOX 4's Lori Brown.