Friday, November 27, 2015

The Little City of Lake Worth's Utilities Electronic Payment App

One thing many of us have in common in Lake Worth is the experience of paying the utility bill. You may not realize it but you can pay your bill on-line by registering at the city's website. You will need to create a password and have your utility account number handy. That number can be found on the upper right portion of your monthly bill. You can also get a Lake Worth utilities app from iTunes or Google Play stores for your smartphone or tablet.

If you look closely at the webpage accessed by the above link you are directed to re-register.
We have long had the ability to pay the bill on line. It was the only item I used on the web with the Microsoft Explorer browser because any other browser wouldn't work. The good news is that was fixed some time ago and now all browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) are welcome.

Within the past year the city introduced the ability to pay through an App. Here is a post from December of last year that talks about my discovery. For a while, all was well and I regularly used my Nexus 7 (Android) device to pay my bill. The app was a little clunky, but it worked and you didn't have to pay the $2 service fee if you used the cashier's window in the City Hall Annex.  However, during this past summer, there was a time when the entire system was down and you had to pay in person or drop your bill in the mail. This lasted about three or four months.

During the time the app was down I received a barrage of messages through the app that they "were diligently working on the issues" and to "be patient", etc. I would try to use it to check on the progress and, no surprise, it didn't work.

Well, I am now pleased to tell you that it is generally working again, both on the City's website and with the app. However, you may still have some pitfalls. Just last week I downloaded the app on to my Android phone. Once installed it wouldn't accept payment through that app. I then visited the City's website and was able to pay that way. I reported the problem through the app and these are the number of responses I got. Note they are all the same:
My payment did go through. I will continue to be brave and try to use the app first and the default will be to go to the website. Isn't there a saying about "If it's not broke, don't fix it"? When the app is completely functional will inform all of you. Stay tuned, as they say.