LooseSuits

I got an email this morning to that effect, I raised an eyebrow to it too.

Same here kids. I didn't think anything about it was suspect though... I guess I didn't check =\

I think writing a note titled "Dreamhost Hacked" is a little strong though, Mike. This is far more likely a bug in their billing checker or data corruption (both highly fixable without any issues) than somebody hacking into the DH database to screw around with invoices.

Yeah, it's not asking us for money now, just reminding us that we are due to pay in the future.

It just got confused as to what billing cycle we're in, mine is telling me I've got until September 2009 to pay for Sept'08. Which it seems to think I'm near.

There's a digg thread. Apparently it's just a balls-up.

The furore has take the DreamHostStatus blog offline.

We'll see what happens though. The DH guys are usually pretty good about their cock-ups.

Edit: Here's the thread on DHS (very slow)

And here's the current content:

Billing Issues

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.

Severity: High Resolved: No

Oli, I just read the information in the forums and the Digg thread (links posted to top of this entry) and now that I see what's going on I changed the title.

Me thinking that DreamHost was hacked is actually a better thought than them being so stupid and grossly incompetent than to have a billing error affect thousands of customers. At least one of those scenarios isn't totally their fault...

I'm really curious how such a MASSIVE screw up can occur.

They said (somewhere) that they ran a billing script to make sure all last year's customers were up-to-date, and by mistake they ran it for December 31st, 2008, not the December 31st a few weeks ago. Thanks for the explanation guys.... how about next time you're not SCREW UPS!

(Edited because I get a little heated sometimes!)

LOL easy Mike!

Call it good old fashioned British cynicism but I'm not particularly bothered by this; everybody is going to cock up at some point or other.

Hell our own government has been cocking up left, right and centre for the past few months: losing millions of child benefit details, car registration details, medical details and over-re-billing an entire area for it's council tax.

As long as they fix it (including possible overdrawn charges), I'm not sure this is the end of the world.

That said, I've seen a comments in the digg thread saying people have been billed all the way from the plain $120 up to the dizzying height of $9000 (and beyond). The only way I can see that happening is individuals having 75 accounts with DH... How likely is that considering you get more bandwidth with one account than anybody could realistically use and can host "unlimited" domains? I think some people are just getting silly.

For me this is very much a "keep an eye on the bank balance for a few days" but nothing to get excited about.

MacWorld starts in 2 minutes, go watch some liveblogs =)

I agree with Oli halfway. It is all about how they make it right. That includes covering overdrafts and the like. If they do that, it's great. Good job.

There's also a trust issue here. I'd definitely never allow automatic billing from them after this.

When a company screws up, and they all do, it's a matter of how they make it right that really shows what they're made of.

I saw the apology about the issue email last night, then I got the "YOU NEED TO PAY NOW BEFORE JAN OF 2009 OR ELSE" email this morning.

Some stupid monkey hit the wrong button. But yeah, I'm seeing what you're seeing.

I swear, I love me some Dreamhost but when they screw up, they make sure it's over the top, hugely public and unmissable!

I'm with Mike in thinking they're total fuck ups. I had an issue with Dreamhost, and I don't even have an account with them. Someone got my credit card number and charged hundreds of dollars worth of hosting and services at Dreamhost, and it took an inordinate amount of time and unanswered phone calls to get it resoved. I left messages, wrote emails, etc., etc., etc. When a "business" doesn't operate like a business, they're idiots from the word go, and this kind of thing just seals the deal for me.

You can do a lot of crap and handling it the right way after you screw up will go a long way toward fixing it, but you mess with my money and you're gone.

They've just pubbed a blog post. It starts:

Hello.. how’s your morning going?

I hope it’s been a little better than mine.

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.

;Billing fudge-up aside a quick look at my bank account shows they still overcharged me for this month's hosting, which isn't supposed to be taken out of my account until next week. It's only by $5, but still.

When I saw Dreamhost in my Google Notifier I just assumed it was billing time again. Glad to see this note because I never would have opened the e-mail otherwise.

Edit: Clearly the overcharge was related to this and it'll be fixed according to the blog. Phew!

Just one comment from their blog post that I thought rang true with me:

Thank you very much for the immediate detailed explanation and the quick fix. Somehow, I don’t think any other hosting company would have been this forthcoming about an error of this magnitude.

Yes, they cocked up, but they didn't pull a "we didn't do it" or a "are you sure there's really a problem" stunt like many companies try and pull off when their incompetencies turn into PR nightmares.

The DH Status post was posted 8 hours ago. They were as immediate as possible in admitting to the problem, and given some time to have a look at what really happened, have come straight out with the truth.

I'd much rather have the occasional "oops" be told about it and have it fixed than have a different "oops" with a load of denials, waiting days/weeks before anything is done about it.

DH will continue to have my business for the foreseeable future anyway.

Well I guess that explains why I can't get into the panel to cancel my account. Nothing to do with this, just bad timing I guess. Luckily I don't have it set to auto-renew.

Edit: Oh, that's nice, I *was* affected. My billing cycle doesn't actually end for another three months. Well, now I'm encouraged to cancel earlier. Way to go, DH!

@Oli: Nicely said. While I'm not a DH customer and so perhaps my opinion matters less, I thought some of the responses here were a bit over the top. People screw up, whether you're one of us, or the billing guy at Dreamhost. Screaming and raving about it doesn't make it any better. The fact that they came out and said "sorry, we made a major mistake and we know it" means a lot, I think.

It's odd but I quite like Dreamhost because they are real people. You get very real responses from them and when they make mistakes, they own up to it.

I've been very happy with their service.

I've been buying hosting since '01 and been with so many companies who've come and gone. DH is the only company, through that time, that's still in business. I've only been with them for a year (after being hosted by a friend for a few years).

Whenever something happens they are always extremely forthcoming about it and get it fixed ASAP. Even on the weekends, and one has to admit, that's rare. Usually, I only know about the issue because I've received an e-mail about it, and it's already been taken care of.

Still every time the most minor thing happens, their status blog blows up with incendiary comments about how terrible the service is, and all these people threaten to cancel their hosting.

My philosophy is, you get what you pay for. If you don't want your site to go down, cough up the money to get dedicated hosting. For the money and the insane amount of storage and bandwidth provided it doesn't get any better than Dreamhost.

I was also affected by this. but they where very awesome and fixed it right away. now i dont owe them anything until 2010.

I find this to be utterly unacceptable. I read that lunarpages.com is giving a discount to people affected by this and also giving you all the time you had left on your hosting account for free when you signed up.

Sounds like a good deal, and from the research that I have done people seem to be overall more pleased with the experience on lunarpages as compared to dreamhost.

Sounds like a good deal, and from the research that I have done people seem to be overall more pleased with the experience on lunarpages as compared to dreamhost.

I think that's extremely difficult to gauge. I considered Dreamhost at one point, and so I tried to get a feel for what people thought of them. I found tons of "oh my god, I love this host", as well as tons of "this place sucks!" It's also difficult because we don't know how many customers each company has. If Dreamhost has a million, and Lunarpages has 500,000, Dreamhost could have more unhappy customers, but still be the "better" host. I'm not saying you can't get a feel for such a topic, but what was your research, exactly?

I received the same email and responded immediately with WTFBBQ y0!?!? No answer yet. I just re-upped my account in November but am really soured by the extra $800 they charged me for absolutely nothing.

This is unacceptable for me and I am seriously considering moving my hosting away from DH entirely.

I'm not sure accidentally billing out over $7.5Million on your customers card/debit cards is even remotely funny. I'm sure the Justice Dept. might feel the same way! Absolutely incredible!

I'm sure the Justice Dept. might feel the same way!

But why?

1. They made a serious billing error.
2. They acknowledged it immediately, taking full responsibility.
3. They explained exactly how it happened.
4. They've said exactly how they're going to fix it.
5. They're refunding all the money taken.
6. They've said they're going to help people who went overdrawn or missed other payments (and incurred penalties) as a result.

It's not fraud because this was a mistake without even the smallest hint of criminal intent.

A great many companies (and governments) make mistakes like this often involving similar (if not higher) sums of money. How many of those are as rapid or exact in owning up, explaining the problem and setting about fixing it? Damned few.

Even if you move host, there is every chance that this could happen again because all this comes down to human error. If your account never has more money in it than you need, do as Ozone suggests and don't allow auto-billing.

And the light-hearted tone Dreamhost took with this is just the light-hearted approach they take with everything. I just don't understand how customers can expect any different because this is by no means a new style of handling PR at Dreamhost.

If you wanted a dull host that handles things like a robot, you should have done your research and shopped elsewhere. But I think they're cool. They offer an outstanding service for pittance (something that has had a tangible effect on the rest of hosting) and manage to be entertaining at the same time.

@Oli: I agree, I'm not really sure why this is being seen by many as such a big deal. I know they screwed up and overcharged a lot of people, but they fessed up, and they're fixing it. Also:

Even if you move host, there is every chance that this could happen again because all this comes down to human error.

The fact that it was a human error doesn't "fix" the money issues that folks are running into because of Dreamhost's mistake; I know that. If I had accidentally been billed $800, my bank account would be drastically overdrawn, and it'd be a pain in the butt to get it all fixed up. But - if a company I deal with overcharges me and breaks my bank account, I'd much rather it be a company that responds quickly and honestly, rather than one that sits around for weeks and goes "We're working on it."

Put yourself in their shoes, folks. I think it's clear that, unless Dreamhost wanted a big mess to clean up which will ultimately make them lose some money, this wasn't malicious.

Somebody brought up a good point somewhere else about all the credit card processing fees they're going to be paying for their mistakes. I wonder how much those will run.

I'm not saying you can't get a feel for such a topic, but what was your research, exactly?

I was searching the web comparing recent comments (within the last year) and for the most part what I found was that they were generally more optomstic for lunarpages. I am not supporting them in any way, however I was thinking about signing up with them from what I found. It is worth noting that I would just be signing up for some personal projects and not anything mission critical.

These were just my impressions, I wouldn't put too much trust in them other than my opinion... Thats as honest of an answer I can give.

Theoretically they are supposed to be refunding all the money that was charged incorrectly. Theoretically. The reality is, I was supposed to be refunded my money for the two incorrect charges of $120 ($240 total) on my account. I have an email from them dated Januar 15th stating that.

But, guess what, they are not refunding my money, but charging me another $120 again, as of close of business today, January 17th, according to my credit card statement.

And, I don't have automatic billing...it has been turned off for several years, but they somehow managed to bill me.

But, guess what, they are not refunding my money, but charging me another $120 again, as of close of business today, January 17th, according to my credit card statement.

This is an issue that I would assume will not be ironed out instantly, and it is a real shame. This could really end their business if they do not hurry up and clean this mess up.

5. They're refunding all the money taken.

DreamHost announced their intent to refund those who were erroneously charged, but I have yet to see the $800 I was charged be credited back to my credit card.

The process should be pretty damn instantaneous methinks! The refund should show up just as quick as the charge. Yet, that does not appear to be the case ...

The process should be pretty damn instantaneous methinks!

You would think, I agree, but then you should remember that CC companies aren't that different from banks.

To transfer money from one bank to another, here in the UK, while free, takes 3-5 days. Charges are instant, refunds take 3-5 days. This is how banks make money: they can keep using yours while it's locked in limbo.

It should be, like jark said, instantaneous. Not all CC companies work slow. I have returned merchandise to major department stores, and the credit is intantaneous. What should not be occurring is the continual billing to my CC, as I said above. I had automatic billing disabled, long before all of this began. Disabled. Yet, they still managed to bill my card, not once, but twice, as recently as yesterday. My CC company has been notified, and if they try to charge to the card again, there will be major repercussions for them, through the CC company and its investigation into the issue.

I've yet to receive credited refunds, or a response to my second email. It is totally unacceptable.

And, for most of the U.S., Monday is a holiday, so banks will be closed, and it will affect those who have a credit card combined to their bank account, or those who used a debit card. I find that the time frame is interesting and bizarre.

Their unprofessional attitude to the entire debacle is deplorable. In fact in the email I received at approximately 2:00 pm, January 15th, they told me I had nothing to worry about. Right. That's why they billed me again, yesterday.

I like DH, however this billing error has left my checking account on slim, I'm waiting for my refund currently and fingers are crossed that it will resolve itself in the next 48 hours or putting gas in my car may be tricky.