January 2008

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My business sites are hosted at DreamHost. They've been having some oddness this month with billing, no doubt fueled at the first of the month by the holiday. They were running late sending out the billing statements, then in one day I got several copies of the same bill. I paid from what I think was the last of the batch, got a receipt, and all was well.

Then came this morning. I got e-mail announcing that I was in danger of losing my websites if I didn't pay them for two years' service by next November. I almost wrote back to ask if they had prescriptions for the good drugs they must be taking to generate such nonsense, but then decided the delete key was my friend. I knew if there had been some massive change in how they were offering service and expecting payment, I'd hear about it again, in plenty of time to make other arrangements.

A little later, I found out other people were having even worse problems. DreamHost had charged the cards or checking accounts of those for whom they had automatic payment programs in place. For many of those people, this resulted in maxed out credit cards or overdrawn bank accounts.

I understand DreamHost was trying to get payments from people whose accounts were overdue at the end of 2007. A date was entered incorrectly, and havoc ensued. Mercifully for me and my debit card, I never set up automatic payments. Today I am extremely glad I made that choice a long time back!

I am not going to leave the company, because I haven't been harmed, and otherwise I've been pleased with their service. I suspect the company will lose customers over this, and I don't blame those who do leave. I hope the company has instituted some safeguard to make sure this particular piece of craziness never happens again.