Dreamhost billing cock-up shocks customer bank accounts

Peanuts - Hull takes 900,000 UKP

" Angry city councillors are calling for a full investigation into how the authority mistakenly withdrew £900,000 from residents' accounts.

As the Mail reported yesterday, about 9,500 unauthorised automated transactions were carried out by the council earlier this week."

http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=136730&command=displayContent&sourceNode=136541&contentPK=19527439&folderPk=79656&pNodeId=243835

I forgive them

I had an email about how I was overdue $198 this morning and put it to one side to look up what I was meant to be paying them and when. By the time I got to the office there was an amusing and apologetic email correcting the error.

I hope they didn't charge and re-credit my Visa though, because doing that can sometimes generate a currency loss of around 10% of the payment.

Me too...

I was billed for 2008 too, I haven't heard anything from Dreamhost apologising for it either.

Hmm

Having looked at his pic, would you trust that guy with your bank details...?

As long as all their customers take their light-hearted tone in as good humour as the posters above, fine. Personally, I would probably have a distinct sense of humour failure at this point.

Not just one year...

I think their cockup was worse than they're saying actually, I not only got billed for all of 2008, I was DOUBLE BILLED for all of 2008. Add in a couple of domain registrations it also automatically billed me for and I got hit for right at $500.

Fortunately it didn't screw up my finances, but I think this mess is going to cost them dearly. I wouldn't be surprised if covering all the overdraft fees they generated bankrupts them.

(For the inevitable claims that no fees would be incurred, you obviously never dealt with my bank who once charged me an overdraft on a check that came in because there was a pending transaction on my check card... even though there was enough in there to cover the check and a deposit was also pending that more than covered both. They did refund that one but claimed it's their standard policy, so with this Dreamhost mess they'd count me down $500 and charge me overdrafts on anything else that came through. Some banks are flat out evil, and those who have the misfortune to be stuck with an evil one when Dreamhost overcharged them may be in serious financial trouble at the moment.)

I was billed twice too!

Not impressed. I got their apology email but I've just closed the account now (I had a month left to run on it, they can keep the remaining $ credit!)

I'll stick the domain on nearlyfreespeech with my other domains for now.

They Got me Too ...

... But I'm happy to accept their freely-offered apology and grovelling.

How many other companies not only hold their hands up, but actually apologise?

And it's their first serious c*ck-up in ten years, which also compares well with most companies I connect with.

Phew!

I got clobbered for two years worth too... but the credit card I was using had expired in the interim. So then I got a nice generated email telling me my account was in arrears.

After sending a WTF? query off to them, I got a nice apology as well. Yet another reason for not setting up a direct debit to one's bank account, though. I'd be severely peeved if I'd been charged an overdrawn fee due to the cockup.

Hey

Ian + Anon#3:

Could you post some identifying details, so if I ever feel tempted to sell you anything I know to steer well clear. Mistakes happen, they fixed and apologised, 95% of people are happy, the remaining 5% you don't want as customers.

Actually, maybe this was a deliberate flushing exercise to find that out?

Get a grip

none of you lost any money if this the worst a hosting service ever does to you, count yourselves incredibly lucky. "I almost lost money" shake quiver slobber (wets himself) "oh the humanity!"

Still a happy camper

I have a lot of time for DreamHost. Similarly to Rich, I got a strange "you have been billed" email, but by the time I got round to looking into it, I'd got the following apology email :

<quote>

Hi Alec!

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 and already refunded the $119.4 charge on your

credit card.

You should get the money back on almost immediately, within a day or

two max, and there's no need to contact your credit card company or bank

for the refund.

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!

</quote>

Obviously there will be people screwed over by this, but it will be the fault of the afore-mentioned evil banks. Dreamhost made an honest mistake, corrected it quickly, and issued the only genuine apology I've ever heard from a corporate entity.

(happy icon 'cos I'm still a happy camper)