Hi Alaska!

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 fixed everything up.

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!

Hmmm…personally I thought it was quite funny. Sure they didn’t cancel my account - I would have been less philosophic about it if they had - but I do think part of the charm of using DreamHost is their laid back approach.

You only had to read the original billing emails they sent out to realise it was an error…

DreamHost -> Go fuck yourself (twice)

These guys did everything right:
1. Owned up to the screwup
2. Put it right
3. Said sorry
4. Ensured it would not happen again.

They didn’t cover it up, and did the apology in an entertaining way. I am sure there will be loads of people trying to get a free months hosting or a refund or so, however I think these guys should be commended. Accidents happen…

Great work guys…

The worst part is how bloody long that blog post is!

I’m actually torn on this. Clearly they felt bad, and people can be overly touchy. However, they have a right to be touchy when their credit card has just been charged twelve months of hosting in error. Overall, a straight apology may have been in order.

I used Dreamhost once out of stupidity and lack of due dilligence. They do not honor their own terms of service and they make it as hard as possible for you to get a human on the phone. Im not surprised by the attitude that they took with this recent incident. This incident makes me happy that I left them long ago. Do a search on nightmarehost and see their reputation in the forums.

Actually, just think about the fees they need to pay their bank for refunding those 7.5$M … such a screw up is a major loss to a company, even more than for the individual users.

It didn’t especially bother me, and they fixed it right away. That doesn’t make it okay though. Of all of DH’s screw-ups, this one seems like the one to take seriously. This just proves he can’t communicate without joking. That’s just who he is.

I wasn’t going to cancel my account with them because they screwed up, because it can happen. However, overbilling in the amount of seven and a half MILLION dollars isn’t a laughing matter, and I WILL be finding another host now. I work hard for my money, and anyone who can’t take that seriously doesn’t deserve to get any of it. Someone needs to teach the 20-something guys who run the internet that skipping b-school in favor of demoscene might not have been the best idea always.

evgeny - good point on their credit card processing fees.

Very interesting post and case of what happens when using joking or flippant manner when dealing with a mistake in the business world (and online). Some customers don’t mind, but quite a few - even those that still like them for their funny tone - expressed their distaste for how they apologized for their mistake.

I’m kind of appalled by the reaction by apparently ‘good’ customers. It’s been completely blown out of proportion and the language and reaction over there is gob-smacking and completely out of line. It was a mistake and it was put right. End of.

“I’m kind of appalled by the reaction by apparently ‘good’ customers. It’s been completely blown out of proportion and the language and reaction over there is gob-smacking and completely out of line. It was a mistake and it was put right. End of.”

Completely agree - it was a mistake, get over it. And homer is funny, there is nothing wrong with diffusing a situation with humor - this isn’t a defense purchase gone wrong, it’s web hosting. Welcome to the relaxed atmosphere of the internet.

‘Been with Dreamhost for ~5 years now. Great service, great support. The blog has _always_ been lighthearted, entertaining, and, most of all, provided an interesting and insightful look into their company. Anyone who’s been a customer of theirs for any length of time knows this and knows what to expect.

All in all, I’ll echo “good job”’s comments. Dreamhost handled this a heckuva lot better than most companies would have. (Fwiw, I started to tell my wife that she should look for an erroneous charge from Dreamhost and she interrupted me, saying, “Oh yeah, I already got an email from them saying they fixed the problem.”)

@anon - I’m not a ‘good’ customer - I’m a NEW customer. If the number on file for me were current and not expired, I’d have spent all day today fighting with my bank to straighten things out. I have better things to do with my time, and expecting a serious apology doesn’t seem out of line. To me, this is an indication of how DreamHost does business, and it’s not the kind of company I trust with my money, data and uptime.

I don’t think that they billed every customer, just the ones that would need to make a payment during 2008, and considering that Dreamhost offer two-year plans (paid all at once), I would imagine that quite a lot of their customers (I wouldn’t guess at a percentage though) wouldn’t have actually been billed, which puts your $7.5 million revenue a bit out. Similarly, quite a lot of us (I’m a customer) were mistakenly billed twice, which I assume they also factored into their $7.5 million figure.

I’ve been with Dreamhost for 2 years. Unlike the other hosting companies I’ve used they keep everything running for me, except for the occasional downtime (I’m not a business so I don’t care), and basically give me unlimited everything. I’ll let them run their PR department however the hell they want as long as they continue this everyday stress-free service.

As a Dreamhost customer, I read their blog and am used to the tone of it. Josh *always* writes his posts in that tone, so hes not going to change now. I’m always amazed by how many customers whine on and on when its so *easy* to change hosts! Don’t like ‘em, then leave ‘em!

The truth is Dreamhost offers very cheap hosting and you get what you pay for.

In the hosting world, it’s one strike, and you’re out, as there is so much competition worldwide for any single account.

Dreamhost is just great! Always was, always will be. I am a customer of several hosting companies including the big guys like 1&1, Godaddy, Networksolutions….and still recommend Dreamhost. They just have the best interface, great customer support, host green and have a 1-click install, which is a big seller for a lot of people.

“more than a few customers felt that hosting provider Dreamhost crossed that line today.”

More than a few customers think Dreamhost hasn’t crossed any lines and is doing the right thing.

The article above ignores that the billing program has been changed to disallow the mistake to happen again.

“featured such quips as “The joke is on you!””

That’s Josh’s style (not that I know him, but I’ve been a customer for some years); his monthly newsletters are funny and refreshing. It’s just what I need after reading the daily news.

The article above only picks out the nasty troll comments to that blog post. Did the author not notice any of the ones praising Josh for his handling of the situation?

The comments above mine in *this* blog post are about balanced in Yea vs Nay; presumably it’s the same on the DH blog (but I’m not going to take the time to count).

And the article’s closing “zinger” line is using a joke out of context.

Let’s bring some peace to the world by relaxing a bit and having fun with life!

A certain portion of any customer base is made of whiners, and whiners make cheap news.

Nice to see some happy customer sticking up for Dreamhost.

Dreamhost is a cool company that keeps me frustrated in my first month experience of paid hosting. The problems are there almost everyday. They’re lazy and decided to be funny to cover that. So it’s like a lazy cool company, like laid back rockers. But surely there are countless lazy rockers eaten up by competition in entertainment world. I like Dreamhost. I’m a customer and a big fan. Sometimes, when s**t not happen.

I don’t get it.. what else should they do? They:
1- Apologize for the error
2- Told customers that their cc wont be charged
3- Told customers that it wont happen again

4- ??

Over billing is always a bad scenario for both the customer and the company.

However the admitted their mistake and made right with their customers.

I have used a small firm - EMWD (emwd.com) - for about 8 years. As our business has changed and sites have grown - they have always been there for us. I do pay a little more - but if I have an issue, it is taken care of IMMEDIATELY.

We are on a dedicated server - and again, we pay a bit extra - but if you go with a small, extremely smart company that actually cares about its clients - it is worth the extra few bucks.

And billing is always correct.

I can’t believe that anybody is still making money off of webhosting with GoDaddy and others doing 100 GB accounts at $2.99 a month on sale. That’s pretty much when I shut our hosting business down.

I don’t think that you really have a pick with them on this issue, i have been with them for around 3 years, sure most people don’t get the traffic you get, but i don’t think that you host techcrunch in dreamhost anyway.

Now seriously, the guys apologize, the laid back approach like someone mentioned is really great and you even admitted yourself that they heartfelt apologized.

Shouldn’t we givem the the slack for once on this issue ? first time i had and honestly i didn’t even notice it but had a blast at it.

Do we all remember their great newsletter, how man they made me laugh, this is a hosting company that when you submit a support ticket, they get back to you on less than 24 hours.

I say, they are great and made a little blunder, nothing to worry about, enjoy what they give you, a wonderful web hosting package for little price.

Sincerely i have nothing to complain about them.

less than 24 hours - would not work for me. How about less than 24 minutes? Im telling you, if your livelihood depends on your website - pay a few extra bucks and go with a small, smart company…where the owners livelihood depends on your monthly payment.

Dreamhost’s other customers need to lighten up. Their apology was quick, and kept the informal/funny tone that I’ve come to love from Dreamhost while still making me confident that they were genuinely sorry. In fact, when I received the initial notice of charges for 2008, I was so confident in Dreamhost’s past customer service record with me that I just ignored and deleted the message. And look, I was right! All better. I have a feeling that the people who freaked out about this are the people who are paying peanuts and expecting corporate-level service. C’mon guys, if you really want a web host with no flub ups, you’re going to have to put your money where your mouth is…

I’m a customer of DreamHost. Didn’t bother me.

Maybe Matt Groening or Fox will send them a $7m invoice for trademark infringement.

“They didn’t cover it up, and did the apology in an entertaining way… I however I think these guys should be commended. Accidents happen…”

We couldn’t have summed it up better!

Your Audio Content, Live Streams, and more…
To every phone: via Shout-Outs, or On-Demand
http://www.PhonePortals.com - from Adondo® Corporation

Well this pushed me over the edge. I’ve been dragging my feet and being lazy, but combined with the downtime, slow support responses, poor Ruby on Rails performance - Slicehost here I come.

I am a Dreamhost customer and I have absolutely no problem with the way the issue was handled. I thought it was amazing that they were able to keep it so lighthearted while knowing that the mistake would cost them in credit card fees, compensating customers and lost customers.

The reason I came to Dreamhost is because of their incredible level of transparency- I would much rather a lighthearted apology with a detailed account of what went wrong than a serious apology with little explanation.

My credit card didn’t actually process the charge — and I think the 7.5 million is probably not accurate. For one, they attempted to charge me for ‘08 and ‘09. And, as I mentioned previously, my credit card company didn’t actually process the charge.

Anyway, Dreamhost is great. I’ve been with them since ‘04 and given my recent experiences with other hosts (MediaTemple, in particular) I’ll probably be with them for a while.

Mike - I am in agreement with you on this one. I am torn… I have had good and bad experiences with the company, and for the product they provide, the value is actually quite high (IMHO).

But, that being said, waking up this morning to a billing statement from Dreamhost for $1148.40 on a $19.95 a month billing plan? Extremely unacceptable - especially when their response time to my inquiry took over six (6) hours.

Sure, they offered an apology on their blog, but they also have a mailing list and within seconds they could have issued an apology to their entire customer base… instead of having us wait six (6) hours. This goes beyond just the mistake — yes they do happen — it is about providing your customers with the attention/service they deserve.

Even better, offer a phone number so we can call in and talk to a live person to get an answer as this happened! It is customer service 101.

In the past major hosting companies such as Godaddy would lure customers away from hosting companies by offering discounts to disgruntled dreamhost customers.

Will bob parsons step up this time with a daring move to capitalize on this billing blunder?

http://nick-reinhart.com/2008/.....e-mondays/

I am now 418 dollars in the hole, thanks alot dreamhost.

I am a dreamhost customer, and loved the email!

I think there apology was heartfelt, and honest.

For all of those who are freaking out… i think you need to realign your life priorities.

If you don’t like dreamhost, or their positive, customer friendly communications switch servers, but don’t attack them for having a good attitude about things.

Everyone makes mistakes, its how quickly they react and correct them that says something about their quality and values.

i’m not sure how much more “immediate” their reimbursements could have been. i got an email last night saying they automatically renewed my hosting for a year, which was due to happen in 6 days anyway but was slightly confused why they did it early. then i saw the blog post and was a glad to know what happened. after skimming through the comments and getting a slight chuckle from the overwhelmingly crude responses i checked my bank account online and saw that they had already reimbursed me for the charge.
unlike other times a similar thing has happened with other companies they went ahead and automatically refunded me, appoligized quite thoroughly and managed to keep my business for another year. so what the blog post was more “human” than it was like the regular i have a stick up my ass form? imagine how everyone working at dreamhost must feel right now? or am i the only one that thinks they must be human beings too …. yea seems like it.

There still should have been some kind of safety check, “are you sure you want to do this” etc.. I am just more upset than most because I do not have cash to my name, out of my pocket. And depended on using my credit card to buy food today, and instead had to find what ever spare change we had around the house to get food. Sure its a mistake, it happens, but the guy’s attitude in his blog is a little qwerty.

I lucked out! I had an old credit (debit) card on file. I hadn’t updated the expiration date. Whew! My account was still suspended and although they said my site would be back online by now it still isn’t.

I still feel lucky. I could have covered the whole year that they tried to charge me from my checking but then my automatic credit card payment for another card that comes out on the 15th may have bounced and I would really have been pissed.

I’ve been searching all day for another host, but it’s so difficult to know where to go. I don’t need anything too grand. Who does TechCrunch recommend??? I need a TechCrunch rundown on the best hosting. Most of the “best hosting” sites seem to be just lame attempts by affiliates to make some money. Help!

The sad part is this is one of a long line of weird and what seem to me unprofessional responses to mistakes made. If they’re unprofessional in this regard, how professional are they in managing the rest of their business and customers’ data?

http://www.midnightcheese.com/?p=449
http://www.37signals.com/svn/p.....cing-trees
http://www.red-sweater.com/blo.....me-apology

I don’t mind the tone of what they posted, I know that’s just how they are, and I’ve seldom had a problem so it’s easy for me to let it slide, especially since it was never set to go after my bank account. What sickens me about the whole mess is how cruel the rabid fanboys&girls can be, saying people who can’t afford to be charged for two whole years out of nowhere, and not too long after the holidays at that, have no right to have a website, or that they are idiots for not using super secure prepaid card like they were dealing with Nigerian Ponzi scammers rather than one of the largest webhosts in the world, and all kinds of other excuses why it should be the customers’ fault. If it had been, DreamHost would be asking for an apology from its customers, not offering one to them. Maybe a lot of people have learned to be more cautious online from here on out, but there’s no sense in adding insult to injury when all of us have suffered or will suffer as a result of being naive about something at some point.

I think some people were probably just too touchy about their sites being down (most of that got put right in short order). However, because of the people who had a lot of money come out of their debit accounts or who had their credit overdrawn—I think they should have stuck with the heartfelt aspect, the great explanation of what happened part, but maybe joked a little less.

Some people will take quite a while to recover from this screw up–overdraft fees which they’re not sure will be paid, potential for bad credit, potential for raised interest. Those are lasting consequences that I’m sure the customers were very worried about. With that anxiety stressing them, I expect they felt that the people who caused it weren’t taking it seriously enough.

I just think this is why you should never trust anyone enough to do automated billing. It’s so easy to make such a simple typo.

I’m also one of the lucky ones whose site didn’t go down. That would have pissed me, but not badly enough to leave. They’ve been reasonably good about getting it up in the past and I know I’m not paying for top quality. And my billing isn’t automated because I want to check every bill myself first.

Typical immature behavior when it’s other people’s money at stake. It’s what I now expect from Web 2.0 type companies. Buyer beware…

I’m just wondering if age has anything to do with the difference of opinions with regards to the style of Dreamhost’s apology? I’m old enough to remember the times when sales clerks still said Thank You when you bought something at a store. Had I been a Dreamhost client I would have been livid at the style of their apology! No respect. There’s a time for humor and then there’s a time to stick your tail between your legs and offer a sincere apology. They could have joked about it after the fact if that’s their style.

its the typical American “web2.0 We are hip, cool and funny” way of bringing news i guess.