Impulse Blogger

DreamHost is in Serious Truble

A few days ago, Dreamhost just burried it reputation alive by billing (probably) ALL ther customers with sums up to $9,000. Whoever had an active credit card on dreamhost.com actually was charged, or rather — overcharged. I managed to bypass the auto bill because my account was bound to paypal, and except for getting the email below no damaged happened.

This is just a notice that your DreamHost Account #****28
(”Liza’s Account”) has a balance of $112.40 (including any charges not
due until 2009-01-29), with $112.40 due (since 2008-12-29).

You also have $112.40 past due (owed since 2008-11-29), and if
by 2009-01-29 you do not pay at least the $112.40 part, your
account will be automatically suspended until payment is received.
If you would like to CLOSE your account with DreamHost, just visit:

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=billing.accounts

Log in if you need to, then click the “close this account” link. If you close
your account you won’t be charged $112.40 on 2009-01-29… please stay!

| NOTE: Any account with any charges 60 days past due is considered
| delinquent and will have service discontinued until payment is made,
| so it is very important for you to make your payment as soon as you
| can. In order to help prevent a service outage, we will send you
| periodic reminders until payment is made.

WHAT DO YOU OWE MONEY FOR?
We have the last payment on this account to be $7.00 on 2008-01-15 00:32:13.
Since then the following charges have been made to the account:

2008-11-29 - $119.40 for “My Crazy Domain Insane” through 2009-11-28.

For full information on your previous balance please visit your account
invoice, which you may view from the web panel, here:

https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=billing.invoice

FYI, THESE ATTEMPTS TO REBILL YOUR CREDIT CARD(S) FAILED

Amount: $112.40
Credit card: *5008 (ex 08/07)
‘08/07′ has already passed!

Basically I didn’t panic because I knew my account is paid up until next year and it could be nothing but error, but today I noticed that practically every place online is covering the event and this is because it was not just an email notification sent out by mistake, but people have had big sums deducted from their accounts.

It’s been on Digg, and it’s been on LunarPages blog . The comments on DreamHost offical blog are worth reading — those who had been overcharged are furious, those who just had an email notification (like myself) are saying it was no big deal.  Well, it makes sense.

Bottom line — Dreamhost might face a lawsuit and possibly be charged, Class Action seems to be raging and a new popular term has appeared in Google. People are complaining for being overdrafted and their banks charging them extra fees. Fixing the damage will takes longer than it took to bill the entire customers list (that was done in 12 hours only! And we, customers, can’t send more than 200 emails per hour!). I hope DH won’t get charges, because that would mean they might close down and I need to move all my 40+ databases. Oh please, don’t sue DreamHost!