Brent GoldbergA California company that handles sewer billing for the Chattanooga area is seeking to salvage relations with residents who have been assessed processing fees when paying their bills online, over the phone or at retail locations.
ENCO Utility Services contracted with Chattanooga, the Hamilton County Water & Wastewater Treatment Authority and Rossville for sewer billing services in August 2012, after Tennessee American Water Co. said it would stop providing the service at the start of 2013.
In an email to city officials and media Tuesday, Ruby Irigoyen, president of customer service for ENCO, said previous news reports that the company pocketed $3 fees levied on residents who paid online or over the phone, and an average $1.88 fee paid by residents who paid at retail locations, were false.
She said those fees go straight to merchant banks that handle the transactions online and over the phone, or to financial networks in the case of in-person payments. In this case, the processing service is Collector Solutions Inc. and the underlying bank is the First National Bank of Central Texas, Irigoyen said in an email.
“When a customer goes online to make a payment it goes to the site. … When they click the button to actually make the payment, it’s directed to a secure site that goes to a bank. That’s where the $3 fee is paid,” Irigoyen said in a phone interview Wednesday. “None of that money goes to ENCO.”