Wareham residents have been able to pay their tax bills online for years and a new service makes the process even more efficient - just watch out for the "fine print."

The town implemented an online tax payment service with a third party company called Invoice Cloud on Jan. 1. Residents can pay their current real estate and property taxes as well as boats, motor vehicle and sewage taxes and those go out in the coming months.

Town Treasurer/Collector John Foster said the new service allows residents options such as paperless billing, printing out their bill at home, searching for their bill by last name the system holds records for 18 months so people can look back at their previous tax bills when needed.

Foster said, "It's an additional service to the people," and has garnered a good response from the community.

Wareham resident Peter Baum though the service was great until he noticed a service fee totaling 2.95 percent of his tax bill when he went to pay with his credit card.

"I was really surprised there would be that much of a service charge," Baum said.

Invoice Cloud charges a 2.95 percent service fee when residents pay with a credit card, but only 40 cents (now less than the cost of a stamp) when paying via e-check from your bank account.

Foster said the service fees are paid directly to Invoice Cloud, the town doesn't see any of that money.

The 2.95 percent fee is consistent with other third party providers and other towns that offer an online payment service. Foster said the old system the town used had a service charge that varied, and could be over three percent if the bill was relatively small, but generally averaged around three percent.

He said so far a lot more people use the e-checking than the credit card service, and while more people are beginning to pay online there could be a lot more using it.

The library and the harbormaster are also using Invoice Cloud for payments to their offices.