Dreamhost Overbills Customers by $7.5 Million

So, I received this in my e-mail:

=======

This is just a notice that your DreamHost Account ("zergrinch's Account") has a balance of $188.60 (including any charges not due until 2009-01-28), with $188.60 due (since 2008-12-28).

You also have $188.60 past due (owed since 2008-11-28), and if by 2009-01-28 you do not pay at least the $188.60 part, your account will be automatically suspended until payment is received.

If you would like to CLOSE your account with DreamHost, just visit: https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=billing.accounts

Log in if you need to, then click the "close this account" link. If you close your account you won't be charged $188.60 on 2009-01-28... please stay!

WHAT DO YOU OWE MONEY FOR?
We have the last payment on this account to be $2.20 on 2008-01-15 02:11:07. Since then the following charges have been made to the account:

2008-02-28 - $190.80 for "My Crazy Domain Insane" through 2010-02-27.

For full information on your previous balance please visit your account invoice, which you may view from the web panel, here:

=======

After a quick WTF (I've been delinquent since December 28, 2008 ) I head on to their blog to check things out.

Originally Posted by Josh Jones

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.

So apparently he typed in 2008 when he should have typed in 2007. Understandable human error, although the software should have caught this boo-boo in the first place. They're working on reversing all the charges, although I imagine they'll be paying through the nose on those credit card chargebacks.

That was a quick chuckle for me, since I turned off autoBill. At any rate, the credit card on their file had already expired.

However, it seems quite a few people are pissed off by the incident, and are screaming bloody murder in the blog comments. There's talk about class-action lawsuits and fraud investigations. Other hosts, like LunarPages, are stating to pounce by offering $40 discounts to Dreamhost refugees.

So, thoughts? While I personally found this lulz worthy and find the comment vitriol rather hysterical, I'm wondering if some of you have been affected by this?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

People are claiming that having an unexpected three- to four-digit charge to their credit cards / debit cards can cause credit interest rates to go up, overdraft charges to accumulate and snowball, and mortgage payments to be missed.

Are the banks in USA really that hardcore? If they are, I juuuust might understand why over 90% of the comments in the blog are so angry, while I'm here laughing at the whole thing.

@Shin - Dreamhost is not a publicly-listed company, so I doubt any Sarbanes-Oxley compliant controls and audit are mandated for them

Most amazing jew boots