doxo Responds to U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Misguided Litigation

doxo, a provider of simple, all-in-one bill payment service, publicly responds to the Federal Trade Commission's uninformed and overreaching suit. 

SEATTLE, April 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday, the U.S Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against doxo, a company working to deliver a better bill-paying experience for consumers and billers, with a complaint that indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the existing bill-pay market and the structural inefficiencies that work against consumers. The Federal Trade Commission's allegations reflect a lack of understanding and disregard for doxo's services, how bill payments are processed and delivered to billers, and doxo's continued due diligence in meeting and exceeding regulations and market standards. 

The Federal Trade Commission has decided to file a suit that lacks the awareness of the regulatory measures doxo currently adheres to and the overall need for innovation in the bill-pay market, a line of thinking that demonstrates a gross misinterpretation of the current market structure. This lawsuit serves to diminish the power of the consumer in a market in desperate need of innovation and consumer-centered improvements.

The bill-pay market, as it currently exists, is a tedious, high-friction, and extremely fragmented experience for consumers. This unnecessary complexity in managing and staying on top of bills contributes to huge expenses for U.S. households – over $24B in late fees and another $10B in overdraft fees every year. The market structure today falls short in serving the interest of consumers and is in desperate need of new alternatives and innovation, a necessity that this lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission overlooks. 

doxo was founded to solve a simple and obvious problem – to provide a single standard checkout to pay over 100,000 billers across the country, allowing every bill to be paid the same way every time, with a single login, and without ever needing to share sensitive payment account data with any individual biller. To date, over ten million people have safely and efficiently paid bills through doxo's unique model, which is built around the consumer, allowing users to have flexibility in choosing individual billers or bank accounts. Simplifying the consumer experience in this way brings cost savings, and financial health benefits to consumers and billers alike. This legal action could fundamentally impact consumers' ability to have ease and access to multitudes of frictionless bill paying, at their convenience. 

"This is a misguided action by the FTC that fails to understand the current bill-pay market structure, the payment networks and processes used in this market, and doxo's business practices," said the CEO and co-founder of doxo, Steve Shivers. "For over 14 years, doxo's all-in-one bill pay has radically simplified the bill pay experience by empowering consumers to organize and pay any household bill, on any device, through a standard and secure checkout. We provide a great consumer experience, evidenced by our high repeat usage rates, strong reviews, and excellent customer satisfaction scores. We look forward to fighting this battle on behalf of consumers and billers and continuing to bring innovation and transparency to this market."

doxo provides fundamental innovations that are good and useful for all individuals who pay bills on a regular basis, and offers financial safeguards that individual biller's simply can't provide. Consumers can enjoy the financial protections of a doxoPLUS subscription which adds credit score monitoring and $1M of identity theft protection, and helps eliminate overdraft and late fees. doxo further benefits consumers by providing greater transparency to the bill-pay market – making it easy to compare costs of bills for any location in the country, and will continue to serve those who crave the ease of a single, standard service for managing due dates and staying on top of household bills. This suit hinders market competition and innovation which is necessary for this industry to advance. These concrete examples highlight ways in which the FTC has overreached in its claims, countering consumer interest. 

"We are disappointed in the FTC's decision to file this suit," said the legal counsel of doxo, Courtland Reichman of Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP. "The case ignores the fact that doxo meets and exceeds regulatory requirements and market standards as they empower consumers and foster innovation in the marketplace. Despite doxo proactively addressing the FTC's concerns, they filed a sensationalist lawsuit anyway. I'm confident that we will prevail as we fight this case on behalf of consumers and their interests, and doxo's services will continue to be a beneficial addition to consumers and market competition." 

Learn more about doxo at doxo.com.

For an official statement from the company and an FAQ please visit: https://www.doxo.com/w/company/statement/

About doxo

doxo delivers innovation that transforms the bill pay experience for consumers, billers and financial technology providers. For over 10M consumers, doxo's all-in-one bill pay makes it simple to organize and pay any bill on any device through a secure checkout. For billers, doxo's network-driven platform enables online and mobile payments with a ridiculously simple integration, radically lower costs, and game-changing features that are unavailable with legacy bill pay vendors. For fintech partners, doxo delivers financial innovations to consumers across 97% of US Zip Codes, paying from more than 5,000 financial institutions to over 120,000 billers in 45+ service categories. For employees, doxo is a creative, ever-learning team that is passionate about building fintech tools that dramatically improve the bill pay experience. To learn more about America's leading bill pay network, visit doxo.com.

SOURCE doxo