I happened to be awake at 3am last night, when I hear my email box chime. Checking it I see a pleasant email from dreamhost(Their newsletters are always so funny!) as follows:

Quote :

"This is just a notice that your DreamHost Account #xxxxx has a balance of $119.40 (including any charges not due until 2009-01-13), with $119.40 due (since 2008-12-13). You also have $119.40 past due (owed since 2008-11-13), and if by 2009-01-13 you do not pay at least the $119.40 part, your account will be automatically suspended until payment is received. THESE ATTEMPTS TO REBILL YOUR CREDIT CARD(S) FAILED Amount: $119.40 Credit card: *xxxx There was an error while charging your credit card. The processor returned: Duplicate trans: Transaction in progress (err code 30) "

So apparently I'll become a deadbeat loser sometime within the next year. Good thing I'd already cancelled that credit card for other reasons.

Apparently Dreamhost automatically overcharged every single one of it's customers last night. The worst story so far is an overdraft of $9,000.

I like dreamhost's service, and they seem like nice folks(always posting photos of their employees and shit) Is this the type of mistake a company can come back from?

[Edited on January 15, 2008 at 9:37 AM. Reason : http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2008/01/15/billing-issues/#comments]

1/15/2008 9:37:20 AM

I'm sure they can fix it and they'll end up giving everyone a discount or something and everyone will forget within a month or so.

1/15/2008 9:39:06 AM

I don't know, that's alot of overdraft fees. Maybe in a week their homepage will be a photo of some sad-faced employee cleaning out his desk.

"Employee-owned since 1997!"

[Edited on January 15, 2008 at 9:51 AM. Reason : .]

1/15/2008 9:43:00 AM

Woops!

Quote :

"We have the last payment on this account to be $9.95 on 2008-01-14 14:48:34. Since then the following charges have been made to the account, which you have just paid for: 2008-01-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-02-27. 2008-01-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-02-27. 2008-02-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-03-27. 2008-02-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-03-27. 2008-03-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-04-27. 2008-03-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-04-27. 2008-04-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-05-27. 2008-05-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-06-27. 2008-05-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-06-27. 2008-06-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-07-27. 2008-06-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-07-27. 2008-07-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-08-27. 2008-07-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-08-27. 2008-08-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-09-27. 2008-08-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-09-27. 2008-09-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-10-27. 2008-10-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-11-27. 2008-10-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-11-27. 2008-11-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-12-27. 2008-11-28 - $9.95 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2008-12-27. "

1/15/2008 9:56:26 AM

ummm...oops?

1/15/2008 10:01:10 AM

Quote :

"We have the last payment on this account to be $9.95 on 2007-08-12 00:48:25. Since then the following charges have been made to the account, which you have just paid for: 2008-08-12 - $190.80 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2010-08-11. 2008-08-12 - $190.80 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2010-08-11. SUMMARY OF PAYMENT Amount: $381.60 Credit card: *7034 (ex 01/10) Payment code: 2618887"

Yeah, apparently I just paid as well. Good thing I only had two domains and one hosting plan.

1/15/2008 10:14:03 AM

me too

they've had a lot of problems over the last year or so. i think i might switch. any suggestions?

[Edited on January 15, 2008 at 10:21 AM. Reason : .]

1/15/2008 10:16:51 AM

Im sure they will fix it. I still rate their hosting as number 1, as its easy to customize, no obnoxious management platform, and lots of flexibility. And they dont charge for little changes and extra things.

[Edited on January 15, 2008 at 11:02 AM. Reason : .]

1/15/2008 11:01:37 AM

Quote :

"We had a teensy eensy weensy little billing error last night… my first clue something was up when I saw this morning’s daily billing report (so far): $7,500,000. It turns out due to my excessively fat fingers, nearly every one of our customers has been seriously over-billed in the last 12 hours."

haha they noticed something was wrong this morning only when they saw they had gathered $7.5 million overnight

Shit happens, at least they're going to make things right.

1/15/2008 3:48:39 PM

keep it

disappear to bali

1/15/2008 4:09:23 PM

can anyone get into the control panel right now?

1/15/2008 4:10:24 PM

my panel works. here's an email i got today. so this was all due to a mis-type? ouch.

Quote :

"Ack. Through a COMPLETE bumbling on our part, we've accidentally attempted to charge you for the ENTIRE year of 2008 (and probably 2009!) ALREADY (it was all due to a fat finger)! We're really really realllly embarassed about this, but you have nothing to worry about. Please ignore any confusing billing messages you may have received recently; we've already removed all those bum future charges on your account (#123456) and fixed everything up. Thank you very very much for your patience with this.. we PROMISE this won't happen again. There's no need to reply to this message unless of course you have any other questions at all! Sincerely, The Foolish DreamHost Billing Team!"

1/15/2008 4:37:18 PM

Quote :

"so this was all due to a mis-type? ouch."

haha yea. the guy was running the billing script to make sure they got everything. He ran it manually for 2008-01-10 all the way down to 2008-01-01. Then he decided to go a few days into the last year and did 2008-12-31 all the way down to 2008-12-25. He forgot to change the 2008 to 2007

Talk about an expensive 1-digit typo

1/15/2008 4:51:33 PM

well i'll be looking forward to seeing this on thedailywtf tomorrow

1/15/2008 4:53:04 PM

haha tqhosting ftw

1/15/2008 4:59:28 PM

man dreamhost always keeps me entertained. they're good people and all and everyone makes mistakes but its funny to read their blog comments

every comment is something like:

"what is wrong with you idiots can't keep anything going right and i just lost $5000 worth of business because my website was down and now my clients dont trust me"

or

"dreamhost is still a really good deal, i love you guys"

1/15/2008 5:48:14 PM

Some gems from the dreamhost blog comments today:

Quote :

"if I am not credited within 24 hours I will report you to VISA and seek the removal of your merchant status."

OMG! Take them down!

Quote :

"Almost had a heart attack!"

If dreamhost can give you a heart attack, you really have bigger issues than can be solved by reading a blog.

Quote :

"April’s Fools!!! (4 months ahead of time!)"

Quote :

"Although I had an expired card on record, I’m closing my dreamhost account the moment I’ve sorted out an alternative."

Like so many other empty threats -- If you're really moving your business elsewhere, why dont you just fucking do it instead of talking about it like everyone else?

1/15/2008 5:52:31 PM

A glitch in the payroll system. Sounds like someone is having the case of the Monday's...

Office Space FTW

1/15/2008 6:22:45 PM

aha

http://www.dreamhostclassaction.org/ *







* Hosted by Dreamhost

1/15/2008 7:09:28 PM

I'm sure they can fix it and they'll end up giving everyone a discount or something and everyone will forget within a month or so.

1/15/2008 7:12:37 PM

Quote :

"Hi sam! Ack. Through a COMPLETE bumbling on our part, we accidentally attempted to charge you for the ENTIRE year of 2008 (and probably 2009!) ALREADY (it was all due to a fat finger)! I'm really really realllly embarassed about this, but you have nothing to worry about. You can just ignore any confusing billing messages you received recently; I already removed all those bum future charges on your account and fixed everything up. Thank you very very much for your patience with this.. I PROMISE this won't happen again! Please let me know if you have any other billing concerns or if I missed something or if you have any other questions at all! Sorry again, Josh! "

i just got the email that they screwed up.

1/15/2008 8:11:39 PM

so they changed we to I and blamed Josh? lol

[Edited on January 15, 2008 at 8:42 PM. Reason : the screwup is bad, but damn if i don't love dreamhost's communications]

1/15/2008 8:41:53 PM

Problem: A large glitch in client accounts.
Fix: Blame the Intern.

Done.

1/15/2008 8:53:42 PM

Yeah I got an email about them this morning saying they couldn't charge me $572 for a 2year extension to my credit card because it was expired. Needless to say, I read the email and said "meh".

Does anyone know if you can use coupon codes when renewing your plan with DH?

1/15/2008 9:46:45 PM

I couldn't find any coupons when I renewed recently. But wait a week and threaten to leave and you'll probably get a deal.

1/15/2008 11:16:34 PM

No refund for me yet. If it's not credited back to me by Monday, I'm contacting bank and disputing the charges. I've been really patient with them since they've provided me with good service so far. But, my patience is wearing thin.

1/18/2008 12:39:32 PM

Got my refund. I'm back on the dreamhost bandwagon.

1/22/2008 1:40:25 PM

http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2008/03/07/dreamhost-firewall-error/

3/9/2008 2:07:04 PM

What was the hosting service that many people from tech talk used back in the day that turned out to be really shitty? It was run by some other tww user?

3/9/2008 3:30:13 PM

forget the name of it - but it was done by hassell

3/9/2008 3:34:20 PM

there was enablehosting by hassell, then progress-systems.com by some other guy

a few tww users use my hosting service but it isn't shitty.

3/9/2008 3:59:23 PM

I bought a (gs) account at mediatemple, and it's pretty sweet. i like the dreamhost panel better, though, as it allows for your individual sites to be more configured (ie, own php installations, etc)

i wonder how long traditional shared hosting will be around now, especially since a lot of companies are getting into virtual private servers and these grid/cloud setups. i hope dreamhost will decide to move soon, because one of my neighbors the server I use is starting to slow me down

3/9/2008 4:21:33 PM

still worlds better than network solutions had been.

3/9/2008 4:24:44 PM

hostmonster FTW (though i got it at $4.95/month, so that really helps)

3/9/2008 4:38:02 PM

holy hell i can't even get to dreamhost.com

this is ridiculous

edit. ok nevermind, http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2008/03/14/central-services-and-spunky-cluster-move/

[Edited on March 21, 2008 at 11:22 PM. Reason : still, this is not pleasant]

3/21/2008 11:18:24 PM

i started looking for a new webhost yesterday and was amazed at how many people trust all these oversellers

3/22/2008 2:26:22 AM