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258 Comments
- inactive, on 01/15/2008, -12/+62I grossly underestimated how incompetent they were.
- chrislongridge, on 01/15/2008, -5/+46We better get our overdraft charges back!
- hideyourarms, on 01/15/2008, -2/+36Who would have thought that forgetting to put a new credit card on your account when your old one expired would actually turn out to be a good thing? They attempted to charge me more than $700, and I've seen a few people say they were charged more than $4000.
- muppet77, on 01/15/2008, -6/+28No email from DreamHost AT ALL about the mistake, just a bill in my inbox this morning for $360. I'm VERY lucky that my mortgage check didn't bounce, but I bet my utilities will this afternoon. I've been VERY patient with dreamhost through downtime, slowtime, and even a few smaller billing mistakes (even when their rep snottily implied that their double billing me for a month was *my* fault), but this is ridiculous. No email, no headline on their front page, just a little red post-it thing on their support contact form (visible only to customers) and the issue on their dreamhoststatus.com blog, which mostly only customers know about. How about a public apology on their front page. Right now they're advertising their 10 year birthday (I've been a customer for almost all 10 years) and their great sale price on new plans (how about grandfathering those of us in who are paying 4x the new sale price?)
No offer of free hosting (though in fairness they're knee deep right now), a generic apology, and the kicker: Absolutely NO mass email to inform subscribers of the error. You have to go to their site to see that they're gonna fix it. This is INEXCUSABLE. How about folks with email but not internet access (ie, cell phone or something)? They're gonna be flipping out.
If this is all 'excused' by DreamHost in another "cheeky" newsletter with little happy children graphics, I'll go ballistic. How are you going to fix my FICO score, Dreamhost? - Tritis, on 01/15/2008, -6/+26I have a dreamhost account (without recurring billing because I don't mind paying manually once a year). Let me just say that I have never seen a larger amount of people complaining about their mortgage. Based on the responses on the dreamhost blog half their customer base is $200 from bankruptcy.
Also it seems that this one charge has instantly cleared most people's accounts while I've never seen a charge that wasn't (Pending) for at least a day on my account. Huge amount of whining and lying for something that is annoying and completely unacceptable from a company, but outright lies by customers paying less than $10 a month for decent hosting really aren't necessary. - Jebus, on 01/15/2008, -3/+23Overdraft charges, yea, no kidding... But then I remembered, "*****, I'm made the conscious decision not to sacrifice control over MY MONEY for convenience and don't have direct debit setup for anything other than my mortgage payment."
Seriously people, letting companies ( private, utility, etc ) have unfettered access to make whatever withdrawals from your account is just setting yourself up to get ***** over at some point. Sure, Dreamhost buggered this up and it's inexcusable, but what if some douche ended up charging hundreds of dollars of long distance to your phone bill? Or some one has been charging pay per view to you cable bill? Or your water line in your house springs a leak that you don't notice and your water bill is tripled? It is always easier to arrange for (partial/reduced) payment or correct the situation before money has changed hands, if they can just scoop the money out of your account, you've lost your biggest bargaining chip. - RevATARI, on 01/15/2008, -6/+25I got the $9000 one
- phildo, on 01/15/2008, -5/+22It's one thing to deal with their spotty uptime - I mean hey, it's cheap for a reason, right? - but this is absolutely beyond the pale. I'm going to be late on several of my bills; I've read about customers who are going to miss their mortgage payments because of this, and now I have to notify and explain to my clients that I'd talked into signing up with Dreamhost why they just got a double-bill from the future and convince them to trust me again when I recommend a new host. Not to mention the time that I'm going to have to waste migrating sites to new hosting, etc... ***** you, Dreamhost!
- silicate, on 01/15/2008, -1/+15From dreamhoststatus.com
"Scripts are still running to correct the original problem. Last night, this guy ran a standard billing cycle to clean up stragglers from 2007. Unfortunately, the biller was ran for 2008 (December 31st, 2008 to be exact). This caused everyone to be billed as if today was 2008-12-31, wreaking the havoc that we are so sorry you had to be put through."
This guy -> http://blog.dreamhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/ ... - muppet77, on 01/15/2008, -4/+16Billing your entire customer base for an entire year in advance not only once, but TWICE, is a bit inexcusable.
Computers are pretty perfect, actually, but people aren't. That's why you have testing, acceptance, integration, etc cycles when you develop say, a new billing process, or even make a change to the environment on say, a billing server.
For a change on their *production server* to result in the billing of (thousands? hundreds of thousands?) of customers, many for up to 24 billing periods in advance, it's hard to believe that ANY sane or competent change control process was followed. - nicepants, on 01/15/2008, -0/+11jim is right...if your checking account balance is that low, why not just use a credit card? Or at least turn off auto-pay.
- dirtyoldgoat, on 01/15/2008, -3/+12I'm more than understanding when it comes to mistakes and I've been pretty lenient and patient with Dreamhost when it comes to outages and other server issues, but I'll be moving to a new service once this mess is sorted out. I was overcharged almost $400US, but I believe the thing that irritates me the most is that I received no notification from Dreamhost that they were aware of the problem, that they had fixed the problem, or that was even a problem at all. Instead, I woke up this morning staring at a bill in my e-mail showing that I was charged early and for two years at that.
Dreamhost, wake up! This is a serious issue that deserves more than a blurb on your status page! - Chompy, on 01/15/2008, -2/+11Second DH customer here who hasn't been billed, and I've been with them for 5 years. Simply admit you were wrong and move on.
- Chompy, on 01/15/2008, -0/+8Set up direct debit to a credit card instead. All the convenience, none of the vulnerability. And hey look, more consumer protection too!
- AndrewDB, on 01/15/2008, -3/+11Its more like a nightmare host.. :)
- fac3less, on 01/15/2008, -1/+9"UPDATE Tue Jan 15 07:25:16 PST 2008 -
Scripts are still running to correct the original problem. Last night, this guy ran a standard billing cycle to clean up stragglers from 2007. Unfortunately, the biller was ran for 2008 (December 31st, 2008 to be exact). This caused everyone to be billed as if today was 2008-12-31, wreaking the havoc that we are so sorry you had to be put through.
There is currently no ETA on when the “fix it” script will finish, but this post will not be resolved until it is. The script will reverse all erroneous charges and notify you via e-mail of the transaction reversal. If you receive an all clear e-mail, and are still having any problems with your account and/or charges, please contact support immediately.
Once again, we are all *extremely* sorry for the mishap. Thank you for your continued patience while we clean up our mess." - Gordaen, on 01/15/2008, -0/+8Their blog says: "If, because of this billing mistake, you somehow incurred some fees from your bank or credit card company, please let us know after tomorrow (today we are just replying to all 10,000+ billing messages with a generic explanation) and we’ll do our best to make it right for you." So DH will probably (hopefully) make it right for their customers. Either way, they are going to lose a huge amount of money from those fees + loss of customers.
- fadeedaf, on 01/15/2008, -1/+8I paid my bill the other day. Checked my email this morning, 230 dollar bill. I tried to go to the panel to check it out, down. Figured there was a problem, went to the status page. Problem. It'll be fixed...
Accidents happen. A TGIF's charged me 11 times one night on accident. Luckily I happened to notice it the next day. Don't jump on the "I HATE DREAMHOST" bandwagon. Things do happen, they are rectifying it. They are not going to know what your overdraft fees were automatically. They will refund the amount, you probably will have to prove to them that your overdraft fees were from Dreamhost for them to pay it back. Most bank's though, will wave them because of a billing problem from an outside company. They will see a large amount of the same kind of thing and notice a pattern, then probably not charge you at all.
Best practice is to not give people your bank info... - kingyubba, on 01/15/2008, -1/+8can anyone recommend a good alternative to Dreamhost? i've only had a few problems with them so far... nothing major, but i don't want to stick around till something happens....
- skord, on 01/15/2008, -1/+8Yeah, this is a complete and total ***** up on a massive scale. No, the entire customer base is not $200 from bankruptcy, some people got bills that were insane. I don't care if my site is slow, I don't care if my service goes out here and there, but leaking passwords and billing screwups should have people screaming class action.
- alphex, on 01/15/2008, -3/+9Yep, that did it, I'm leaving dreamhost.
sorry guys - ilikebike, on 01/15/2008, -0/+6Just got hit for 1yr of hosting charges.
BTW, update on dreamhost site:
We are currently aware of some billing inaccuracies which we will be resolving later today. All of these issues will be resolved, and any billing errors corrected. We sincerely apologize for any hassle this has created.
- UPDATE Tue Jan 15 04:13:17 PST 2008 -
The problem has been found and corrected. We are currently going through all erroneously charged accounts and refunding money. Stay tuned for further updates.
- UPDATE Tue Jan 15 07:25:16 PST 2008 -
Scripts are still running to correct the original problem. Last night, this guy ran a standard billing cycle to clean up stragglers from 2007. Unfortunately, the biller was ran for 2008 (December 31st, 2008 to be exact). This caused everyone to be billed as if today was 2008-12-31, wreaking the havoc that we are so sorry you had to be put through.
There is currently no ETA on when the “fix it” script will finish, but this post will not be resolved until it is. The script will reverse all erroneous charges and notify you via e-mail of the transaction reversal. If you receive an all clear e-mail, and are still having any problems with your account and/or charges, please contact support immediately.
Once again, we are all *extremely* sorry for the mishap. Thank you for your continued patience while we clean up our mess. - nicepants, on 01/15/2008, -0/+6I just wish that Dreamhost would write a letter to my customers explaining that it was their fault. Since I host for other people, none of them worry or care about Dreamhost, I'm the one they call when stuff isn't working, and I'm the one who looks bad when DH f__ks up. Luckily, it's not too often. But in this business...ANY outage is unacceptable.
- fac3less, on 01/15/2008, -1/+7It wasn't just 'up to $400', because I know with my two accounts they attempted to bill me that much.
Some users on the status blog are saying it was thousands -- scary. On the other hand Dreamhost has done fairly well for me in the past so I can't complain much.
I'm just very, very glad I use paypal for accounts like this to prevent crazy potential fraud like this.
There's a number of updates available on Hostjury about it too -- http://hostjury.com/blog/view/93/dreamhost-billing ... - crpndeth, on 01/15/2008, -1/+7ME TOO! My CC info was old and I hadn't got around to changing it yet. Procrastination pays off!!
- darkmotion, on 01/15/2008, -2/+8Dreamhost feels like it is run by a bunch of teenagers with a couple of servers sitting under their beds. It used to be nice a few years ago, but the down time and silly support is annoying.
Swapping host asap. - prosayik, on 01/15/2008, -1/+7Some people swear by Dreamhost and others swear at them.
I got billed for $0.00 this morning, so I'm not the one swearing at them.
I know what you mean mikaeru, I have this friend, TOTAL LOSER. He can never get a hole in one in golf, and I always say "dude, just get a hole in one." Or he'll go down to the subway platform and the train doesn't come instantly. What a moron. - fac3less, on 01/15/2008, -2/+8Ouch :/
- muppet77, on 01/15/2008, -3/+9Not sure why my earlier reply didn't take, but yes, we are actually being charged. The charge has already hit my account.
And despite the loudmouth's yelling "What, it cleared instantly at your magic bank? Of course it's only pending!" They're right, but pending charges still come out of my available balance and will cause later submitted charges to bounce. Dunno how your bank does things. - jimbohawkins, on 01/15/2008, -2/+8If getting charged an extra $200 is going to overdraft your account, you shouldn't have it on auto pay...
- nicepants, on 01/15/2008, -0/+5Using a credit card & paying on time also builds credit history.
- fac3less, on 01/15/2008, -0/+5It's still going to take a bit to reverse -- credit card companies aren't that instant -- but I'm sure Dreamhost will have it sorted quickly enough.
- lanemik, on 01/15/2008, -2/+7I'm glad my previous card is no longer valid. They would have charged me $1064. Phew!
- Charbax, on 01/15/2008, -1/+6Are people actually being charged here? Did you actually see it on your bank statements?
- muppet77, on 01/15/2008, -4/+9Don't assume people are lying simply because they do not conduct business as you do. My checking account is for my recurring bills only, with my other money elsewhere, usually not very liquid, either. Today I was billed for nearly half a thousand dollars in error. You better BELIEVE that this can screw with my other clearing checks. My mortgage check just cleared TODAY alongside the erroneous DreamHost charge, by the grace of God (and a slow postal service where my utilities are concerned).
I could easily have bounced my mortgage check due this error, which would have had lasting repurcussions well beyond the initial bounce fee from my bank. You're good at mouthing off but not so insightful. - crapmatic, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4Yep, I got hit up for $294.
It's astounding how none of this is being picked up by ANY tech news outlet. Something that big could destroy an ISP's business. This is a good illustration of why I go to Digg for a lot of my news. - CalmBlueOcean, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5Dreamhost messing up? Unheard of!
- Ryosen, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4Then you were using the wrong bank. Have your accounts at a bank that is consumer-oriented rather than commercial. You'll find a much higher level of satisfaction.
- Tritis, on 01/15/2008, -2/+6Woah, the dreamhost charge posted in less than 6 hours? That's a pretty extreme bank you've got there.
- Claverhouse, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5They say in the link: "We are currently aware of some billing inaccuracies" and "We are currently going through all erroneously charged accounts and refunding money", the operative words being 'some" and 'all', indicating it is not a global issue.
Which I can confirm also, not having been affected: then again, I don't do direct debit. - megamahi, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4registrar@icann.org
Let ICANN know about this issue. They are the one's who said DreamHost was 'fit' to handle domains in the first place. - jenleighg, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5The part that really bothers me about this is that I heard about the problem, immediately turned off my auto-billing, and THEN got slammed with the charges. Did my change in auto-billing not go through in time, or did they simply ignore the fact I'd turned off auto-billing? I just consider myself lucky that I got slammed by $300 and that my bank's working with me on the matter. If either of those matters weren't the case, I'd be in big trouble.
- covaro, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4Wow, this seriously sucks for all the people affected. This is one of the many reasons I use a hosting company that is about 20 min from my office... if something goes wrong, I can drive up there and smack whoever is responsible.
- fac3less, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4Well, it's just about to hit 9 AM in California where they reside. Give 'em a bit!
(Not that it isn't insanely urgent, but I'm sure they're swamped right now dealing with it) - phoopee3, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4I got charged $400, and while I was a bit nervous, it did say that it didn't go through because my credit card (amex) declined it. Not because I'm over-drawn, just because. So we'll see what happens. Other than this, I haven't really had any trouble with DH.
- chiv, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5It's a shame that I have to find out this from Digg... and not from the company by which I pay hundreds of dollars a year to.
Thanks diggers for digging this up. I was so frustrated that this happened again that I was about to close my account. This is just the icing on that hate filled pastry. lol. - blackmage439, on 01/15/2008, -1/+5And it appears their status page is down. Big surprise. What a ***** company.
- nicepants, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4I handle e-mail hosting for my small business clients because it's easier to do it myself using dreamhost than to try to juggle 40 different hosts with 40 different accounts & passwords, etc. It's easier for them to pay me to handle all of the technical details, account creation, passwords, etc than for them to try to do it all themselves.
I could care less about being billed too much...that's no problem to fix. My problem NOW is that DH suspended my account because it thought I was 12 months behind on my payments. So now all of my clients with DH e-mail addresses aren't able to log into their e-mail, and everything sent to those addresses is being bounced. - MaliciousKitty, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4Ah, Go away Digg! The status site is already slow enough, don't crash it for us.
I don't remember if I had auto billing on - I don't think so - but I didn't get an email so I guess I'm okay. My site was down for awhile though, and I can't access the panel to check my billing status and stuff. - fiendlama, on 01/15/2008, -0/+4I think I'm with a lot of people here that are more than fed up with Dreamhost. Their cheeky frat-house type sense of humor only works if everything they do works and they provide an incredible service - because then you're like, Wow these guys are cool and run a great business. But between the down time and now this, plus I can't get to my panel to make changes right now, the whole thing has become a mess for us. I'll seriously consider moving to another web host, my beef is I've done that like 3 or 4 times when a company has screwed up. I hate to spend more money but looks like the best thing to do. ***** DREAMHOST! GET UR ***** TOGETHER!!!!
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