Dallas residents are reporting widespread problems with the city\u2019s new water billing system, with some receiving bills as high as $10,000 and others waiting more than half an hour to reach the city\u2019s 311 line for help.<\/p>\n
The system, called DallasGo!, launched about a month ago and has generated more than 2,500 calls per day from customers struggling to navigate it. Average 311 wait times have climbed from 90 seconds to 35 minutes.<\/p>\n
Complaints have reached members of the Dallas City Council, several of whom said their offices are absorbing calls that cannot get through to city staff.<\/p>\n
Council member Bill Roth said the rollout has created particular difficulties for landlords and business owners, who must set up separate emails for a single account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been a disaster,\u201d Roth said, Fox 4 KDFW reported. \u201cWe\u2019re getting hundreds of calls to my office. They\u2019re not going to your office because they can\u2019t get to your office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Lorie Blair said she has been unable to access the system herself and was unsatisfied with the assistance offered to constituents, particularly those in her district.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to speak from personal experience. I haven\u2019t yet to get on it. I have tried to call, and I got the run around,\u201d Blair said, per Fox 4.<\/p>\n
Daisy Fast, director of communications and customer service for the City of Dallas, urged residents to try alternatives to the call center.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo right now we are experiencing very long hold times, and we do encourage everyone to try and utilize the self-service options, whether it\u2019s coming here in person or using the online features,\u201d Fast said, according to Fox 4.<\/p>\n
Blair pushed back on the suggestion that residents travel to a city office for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cDistrict Eight is the furthest south that you can get. So for District Eight, it\u2019s an insult to ask them to come down,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Convenience fees and billing errors<\/p>\n
Council member Cara Mendelsohn questioned why a water bill required a tutorial at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo say to go on a website and look at a tutorial, we\u2019re 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\u2019t really need a tutorial. It\u2019s intuitive. We\u2019ve spent millions of dollars for the system that\u2019s made it harder and more problematic for people,\u201d Mendelsohn said, per Fox 4.<\/p>\n
Customers have also raised concerns about a convenience fee of more than 3% charged to those using credit cards or debit cards. Customers can avoid the fee by setting up auto-pay using their checking account information, an option that some customers have met with trepidation.<\/p>\n
District 6 council member Laura Cadena said constituents have reported bills in the thousands of dollars, leaving some afraid to authorize auto-pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had several constituents that have gotten bills for $5,000 or $10,000. And so, if they use auto-pay, now they\u2019re extremely worried that they\u2019re going to be drafted more because there\u2019s some kind of error that\u2019s happening,\u201d Cadena said.<\/p>\n
During the transition, the city is not charging late fees or shutting off water service for nonpayment. Officials have not said how long the grace period will remain in place.<\/p>\n
The City of Dallas has a webpage dedicated to helping water utility customers navigate<\/a> the new DallasGo! system that includes a tutorial and two pages of frequently asked questions. The City is also extending its telephone customer service hours from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. through June 18 to handle the increased call flow.\u00a0 Alternatively, customers can request assistance with DallasGo! via email: [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. Be sure to include customer name, service address, and phone number in the email.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas residents are reporting widespread problems with the city\u2019s new water billing system, with some receiving bills as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5902,102,104,103,121321,121322,7321],"class_list":["post-340144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-city-of-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallasgo","tag-water-billing-system","tag-water-utilities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}