Dreamhost, our Web host for this site and my personal Web host, ran an automated billing process last night that apparently had the wrong billing date set. So, instead of cleaning up billing up to Jan. 14, 2007, it thought today was Dec. 31, 2008. This caused it to (a) automatically deduct/charge the money for those people who were set up with automatic payment and (b) send an email to each account holder telling them that they were overdue. I must have been one of the first to notice as I was up and on the computer at the time the emails came through. Luckily, we don’t have an automatic payment set up so all we got was the email (well, I got two, since I also got the one for my personal accounts).
See the story at the Dreamhost blog as well as their status site (the former is interesting for the comments and the latter is interesting because it’s written by Josh, the guy who screwed up) and at news sites like Infoworld.
People are pissed. I don’t blame them. If I’d woken up today to find my bank account emptied or my credit card maxed out because Dreamhost made a mistake, I’d be livid. As it stands, I’m happy that I don’t have automatic payments set (though when I did it was limited to I think $30 in any one calendar month).
And I am a little worried what the state of Dreamhost will be when the dust settles.