So as you may or may not know, I run all of my websites through dreamhost.com. I’ve used them for many years, and even came back to them after leaving for a few years to cheaper pastures.
Well, this morning I got a billing email from them:
This is just a notice that your DreamHost Account #_____
(”____’s Account”) has a balance of $380.87 (including any charges not
due until 2009-01-14), with $340.97 due (since 2008-12-14).You also have $321.02 past due (owed since 2008-11-14), and if
by 2009-01-14 you do not pay at least the $321.02 part, your
account will be automatically suspended until payment is received.
Ok, that’s confusing… WTF, I ask myself. Looking farther into things…
WHAT DO YOU OWE MONEY FOR?
We have the last payment on this account to be $12.46 on 2008-01-15 06:48:38.
Since then the following charges have been made to the account:
2008-01-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-02-17.
2008-01-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-02-17.
2008-02-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-03-17.
2008-02-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-03-17.
2008-03-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-04-17.
2008-03-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-04-17.
2008-04-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-05-17.
2008-04-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-05-17.
2008-05-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-06-17.
2008-05-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-06-17.
2008-06-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-07-17.
2008-06-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-07-17.
2008-07-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-08-17.
2008-07-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-08-17.
2008-08-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-09-17.
2008-08-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-09-17.
2008-09-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-10-17.
2008-09-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-10-17.
2008-10-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-11-17.
2008-10-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-11-17.
2008-11-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2008-12-17.
2008-12-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2009-01-17.
2008-12-18 – $19.95 for “CODE MONSTER!” through 2009-01-17.
Notice anything odd? I did too. Why am I getting billed for the future? That’s not how things work. Something is wrong. I reply to the email with a simple:
“Is this some kind of mistake?”
And then immediate head over to DreamhostStatus.com, which immediately reveals the problem:
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.
Another link in there reveals a more informal explaination of the problem:
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.
Seven Point Five Milluyun Dollars.
They say they are fixing it and you can act like it never happened, but from reading some of the angry comments on the blog, peoples lives got a bit messed up. To the tune of lots of overdrawn accounts, empty bank accounts and moneyless lunchtimes, all the way to having bounced mortgage payments which of course screws up credit. I guess we’ll never know the full story with some of these angry situations, but let’s hope they do something to compensate for this big messup =P
That being said, they have generally been an awesome shared host, the only problems being related to shared hostey-type stuff, like bottlenecks and the like.
As a programmer by trade, I can completely relate to fat-finger-fuckups but something involving money needs to be treated with the utmost of sanctity.
2 Comments
Tom, this is only peripherally related to the billing booboo but I wanted to tell you that you’re paying too much for your Dreamhost hosting plan. From the email you posted, it looks like you’re paying the old Code Monster fee but they’ve done away with the separate plans — it really only costs $10.95 to get what the Code Monster plan had for $19.95. DH won’t tell you you’re paying too much — they’ll let you keep paying the old price until you die or figure it out on your own. Took me a few months to figure out that I was paying way more than I should have been. :-)
Wow, thank you so much. I’ll yell at them accordingly.
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