Web Hosting Due Payment Notice

Early this morning I received an email from my web hosting, Dreamhost, stating I owed a past due amount of almost $190.

What the…? is my first thought. A mere few hours earlier I’d filed away my latest receipt of payment—my account is automatically charged monthly, around the 9th, and January is my account and domain renewal month. I knew my account wasn’t past due, and I wondered if something in my panel got screwy, making Dreamhost think I’d be paying yearly from now on.

But hold on… this says:

You also have $170.00 past due (owed since 2008-11-09), and if by 2009-01-09 you do not pay at least the $170.00 part, your account will be automatically suspended until payment is received.

Past due since November 2008? That’s in the future!

I try logging in to my web panel. Web panel is down. Yarg. I check their status blog and find this post about billing issues. It’s not just me! However, some people have been charged way way more money than I have, and many customers now have overdrawn bank accounts or overlimit credit cards.

I’m sorry, former customers. A lot of comments made in the status blog post are not very nice (really, publicly calling Dreamhost dipshits on their blog?), and I lost count of the number of people closing their accounts, or at least threatening to do so.

Maybe I’m more forgiving because I haven’t been erroneously charged over $3000. Maybe it’s because I can feel the embarrassment and fear oozing off the DH employees—yes, it’s spanned the continent and I can feel it all the way here on the East Coast!

Many people realize the magnitude of the mistake, calling this a serious issue of high emergency. It is, don’t get me wrong. It’s hugely important. But an issue with this much at stake takes a lot of work and care, a lot of running around trying to solve the problem. It’s not going to be fixed in a couple hours.

Whatever the reason for the error, I can tell that DH is working very hard on this issue, and I’m going to give them the courtesy of not screaming at them for refunds immediately, not threatening to close my account, and not reporting them to VISA for fraud.

Some notes:
If you have DH and have been charged huge amounts of money, Shakadoo makes a good point about bounced checks for rent and mortgage payments. Banks should be very understanding in cases of merchant billing errors. If your checks have bounced, or you’ve been charged overdrawn or overlimit fees, please call your banks ASAP and explain the situation to them!