7.5 Million Dollar Mistake by Dreamhost

c02--aunt-marges-big-mistake Dreamhost has been running through bumpy downs for quite a while now. Their customers have been complaining about frequent downtimes, but that’s just a common thing to happen for such a huge web hosting company (let’s just blindly presume this one). Earlier this week, they did something which would virtually kick any web hosting company out of the game.

They mistakenly billed all their customers a year in advance. This whole mistakes sums upto $7.5 million, but their PR folks decided to go through their usual, old-fashioned humors way to apologizes with a blog post entitled "Um, Whoop? Here’s an excerpt of their post:

"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"

The mistake happened because they accidentally ran the biller for 31/12/2008. It should have actually been 2007. This wasn’t a machine error, but a human slip-up!

After reading the comments which follow their blog post, it doesn’t look like the humor worked. I would have been totally pissed off, if I was a Dreamhost customer. Last time, when Lunarpages changed the 404 page of every customer who had a default 404 page, Dreamhost ridiculed them on their blog. I wouldn’t be surprised to see other web hosts do the same to Dreamhost. Bad! Too bad!

Update: They’ve asked a better apology in their next blog post. They are willing to pay your bank fees, if you were running on over draft or had your cheque bounced. Those willing to shut their Dreamhost accounts will also get a full refund for the unbilled period.

[Via: DownloadSquad, Image: Source]

This post was published by on January 18, 2008

About the Author: Thilak Rao works as a Social Media Expert. He is one of the first professional bloggers from India, and he loves to write, travel and click photos. Follow him on Twitter @thilak

  • http://sankaranand.com/blog/ Sankaranand

    But still it doesn’t make them bad ! they are providing good service only. Anyways i am switching now to mediatemple from dreamhost :-)

  • http://www.evawhite.com Eva White

    This is a quite ridiculous error, I am sure I would really get furious if I would be there customer. I think they should apologize for their mistake in a better way for their customers to get convinced.

  • http://www.nirmaltv.com Nirmal

    Dreamhost has been really poor in their services recently. I read lot of complaints on them.

  • http://www.sheeptech.com Vincent Chow

    I received one of those emails telling me that I owe DreamHost money too, but I did not respond as there are few months left before the due date. I know I have paid up so I decided to contact them in a week or so, but they inform it’s their mistake. 7.5 million, wow..

  • http://www.tecfre.com/bye-bye-dreamhost/ Bye bye dreamhost, you gave tecfre a great start !!! Bluehost movement complete at Tech | Freak , One stop for all your latest technology news and updates

    [...] made me realize that something seriously wrong has happened and little google made me aware of this 7.5 million dollar mistake by dreamhost. Seems like January is gonna be worst month for dreamhost. I am glad I am moved out before things [...]

  • Erez

    In the last year I was dreamhost user.

    Dreamhost is the worst hoster I have ever used in the last 12 years.

    Bad technology, Worst costomer relationship.

    Shutdowns and errors on daily basis. Representitives wont even bother answer you.

    Don’t you ever never get close to them.

    And keep 2 miles from them for precaution.

  • http://www.satishsays.com SatishSays dot Com

    And they released their public apology in a very light manner. Who is gonna pay the fines of the people’s Credit Cards whose limit was overstepped.

    And DreamHost isnt giving any good service these days.

  • http://goviolet.com/?p=634 goviolet » vive le roi

    [...] overbilled its consumers by $7.5 million. I’ve been unhappy with the hosting service for a while, and this seemed like [...]

  • http://technodorm.com Fahad

    Yea, I saw this on their blog. I am not too fond of dreamhost either. I used to have my site hosted there once and it wasn’t really the best of experiences. :/

  • http://featherpot.com Ben Jacob

    Hey peoples haven’t you seen that DreamHost is a Kids Play ? !.. See their ‘about’ page… ;)

  • mark

    “Who is gonna pay the fines of the people’s Credit Cards whose limit was overstepped.”

    Uh, did you even bother to read the post on their blog that was linked?
    —————–
    If this/these erroneous charge(s) by us resulted in you having any sort of overdraft/bounced check/nsf fee from your financial institution, please contact our support team from the web panel. We’d just like to request that you include a copy of your statement with the necessary info showing the fees.
    …..
    When we get this, we will put money on your credit card equal to the amount your bank charged you, as well as give you a DreamHost account credit for the same amount on top of that.
    —————–

  • http://justindupre.com/avoid-dreamhost-at-all-costs/ Avoid Dreamhost At All Costs

    [...] stayed smoother for a couple months. Then, they were like “FUCK YOU to anyone that signed up with us on a debit card.” They ended charging my debit card with no money on [...]

  • Erez

    In the last year I was dreamhost user.

    Dreamhost is the worst hoster I have ever used in the last 12 years.

    Bad technology, Worst costomer relationship.

    Shutdowns and errors on daily basis. Representitives wont even bother answer you.

    Don't you ever never get close to them.

    And keep 2 miles from them for precaution.