DreamHost Blog » Five Fun Facts For Friday

Five Fun Facts For Friday

January 25, 2008 on 5:02 pm | In Insider View, Rants, Updates by Josh Jones |

As fun as they come!

This week, I learned another five things I did not know before:

Monday: Although charging a credit card is instantaneous, refunding really does take 3-4-5-6-or-more business days to process.

Tuesday: You can erroneously credit an expired credit card. The money does leave your merchant account.

Wednesday: You can credit a canceled credit card. The money does leave your merchant account.

Thursday: You can credit a debit card tied to a checking account that has been closed for months. The money does leave your merchant account.

Friday: If you charge somebody with an international credit card and then refund their money, by the time the money gets back on, the dollar will have weakened!

Lucky you to learn these things the fun fun-facts way!

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1

Unfortunately sometimes you just have to learn the hard way…

Comment by $100 Website — January 25, 2008 #
2

This is unacceptable. I’m appalled that you could do such a thing, Josh. Comic Sans? For shame.

Comment by Andrew — January 25, 2008 #
3

I like how the focus of the “lessons learned” are on the pain experienced by Dreamhost for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Monday is an explanation/excuse given in response to customers’ complaints on the slowness of being refunded their money. Friday is an admission that International customers were screwed by the conversion exchange, but is kind of an “explanation” without empathy.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, though, are absolutely focused on your own “woe-is-me” side of the problem YOU caused and worsened. In fact, I doubt anyone is worried that you’ve lost money to expired/canceled cards.

You’re self-focus in this fiasco of your own incompetence reminds me of dealing with people having Asperger’s Syndrome — they also have no sense of empathy, no thought of others and no ability to feel remorse. Actually, you have exhibited the 3 symptoms in this on-going idiocy:

1) Poor non-verbal communication skills (Simpsons?)
2) No demonstrated empathy with others (*.*)
3) Physical clumsiness (fat fingering dates)

Perhaps this mess is all the result of a disability?

Comment by somebot — January 25, 2008 #
4

Fat Fingers and billing fiascoes aside, I still prefer Dreamhost’s style of business and service to most any other business. I appreciate Josh’s wit. It lightens up the gloomy world.

Comment by Mike — January 25, 2008 #
5

Josh, is it too early yet to be calling you Jerome?

;-)

Chin up bro.

Comment by andrew — January 25, 2008 #
6

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/25/charter_erases_14_000_customer_e_mail_accounts/

LOL!

<3 dreamhost.

Comment by Felix — January 25, 2008 #
7

I really disagree with you somebot… I have read about this problem on a dozen blogs, and though they talk about how bad the mistake was, I appreciate their response. They explained it was their fault and why, and refunded the overdraft fees! What company does that? Charter merely says they had a freak accident that erased all email accounts, but Dreamhost answers up.

I only speak for myself, sure, but I really think this is a good way of doing things. I am planning on switching TO Dreamhost when my current plan expires, thanks to all this mess.

Keep doing what you are doing, don’t submit to the corporate style of not answering for your mistakes.

Comment by Zack — January 25, 2008 #
8

No one thought to say “owned”?

Comment by jake — January 25, 2008 #
9

Time to check my expired credit card and see if I got some fat $$$!

Comment by Marcel — January 25, 2008 #
10

somebot: no, you got it the wrong way! We international customers made money (!) by the refund! I made more than 1 (one) $$$ :D

Comment by Focx — January 26, 2008 #
11

I still want your babies, Josh. Take me now.

Comment by Anon — January 26, 2008 #
12

@somebot: Way to spread some false information about Asperger’s syndrome in your zeal to fling some mud at DH! You seem to be experiencing some confusion as to the distinction between Asperger’s ( http://ani.autistics.org/dsm4-aspergers.html ) and sociopathic tendencies ( http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~mcafee/Bin/sb.html ).

Comment by Anonymous — January 26, 2008 #
13

My refund was so fast I only made $0.11

Damn!

Comment by xboxes — January 26, 2008 #
14

Josh, look you have even made me type things in bold now, even though I was upset at you for it before. Unlike you though, I am too stupid to use it to stress certain words or phrases and instead just look like an attention-getting perineum-licking whorebag.

Oh well, I still want to say thanks for the last night, don’t be embarrassed about getting intimidated, it happens to the best of us. I’m sure next time Mr. Slimey will be will enter the firm and maybe through a few rocks around.

You still owe me $50 though. I ain’t stoopid.

Comment by Zimmy — January 26, 2008 #
15

@ #6:

The service provider said it will give a $50 credit to all affected customers.

Comment by jose — January 26, 2008 #
16

At least no-one’s talking about tasers in here.

Comment by Jim (2yr+ customer) — January 26, 2008 #
17

Does Asperger’s Syndrome make your pee stinky?

Comment by osenoa — January 26, 2008 #
18

50 dollars credit for all that lost e-mail? hey, dreamhost was giving back money and credit. but that’s not the point, the point was how little they said.

Comment by Felix — January 27, 2008 #
19

I’d be a lot more forgiving and welcoming of Josh’s style if this wasn’t the jillionth time exactly the same scenario has played out. Every major Dreamhost f*up (power failures, failed data center moves, networking issues, DDOS attacks, billing issues, etc.) plays out the same way, as follows:

Day 1: Hmm, something seems wrong, but no worries everyone, it’s under control.

Day 2: OK, major FUBAR, but it’s all fixed.

Day 3: OK, it should be all fixed now. We missed x, y & z and re-FUBARED a, b & c on Day 2. LOLZ!

Day 4: We’ve learned a lot on this, won’t happen again, please contact tech support. We’re serious business people and we’re sorry.

Day 5: HILARIOUS ™ recap of Days 1-4 and lessons learned. Tee-hee! Check out these LOLCATs.

And every comment thread is filled with a tiny portion of hysterical customers; DH fanboys and mostly average business customers tired of all the downtime and excuses (who get attacked by the fanboys).

Yes, Transparency and owning up to mistakes is better than obfuscation and stonewalling. But you know what’s better? NOT MAKING SO MANY MAJOR MISTAKES. I’ve managed employees before, and I always prefer the ones that can admit their mistakes. But someone who makes a lot of really big mistakes and owns up to them is not preferable to someone who rarely makes mistakes and has a harder time coming clean.

While we don’t individually pay a lot for our DH service, we obviously do collectively ($10-20m or more annually). DH has clearly proven in the last year or two that the technical staff is in way over its head and the “business” staff doesn’t understand what’s necessary to run the size/type of business they’ve become. While most people that are pre-paid aren’t going to leap elsewhere, you can bet this is hurting DH’s ability to attract and retain customers at renewal time. Most people will just silently choose to leave or not come here if the “rep” DH gets is bad.

So DH should absolutely listen to the criticism. It’s not enough anymore to be folksy and transparent. They’ve got to stop f*ing up.

Comment by jcricket — January 27, 2008 #
20

And all the money leaving DH’s merchant account “erroneously”? SO SORRY :-)

Couple with the additional refunds they’re having to pay for any NSF/Overdraft charges and the big fees for chargebacks by anyone who did the smart thing and contacted their bank/CC company immediately and perhaps this will knock some sense into DH management.

Comment by jcricket — January 27, 2008 #
21

“If you charge somebody with an international credit card and then refund their money, by the time the money gets back on, the dollar will have weakened!”

It’s not just that, but even without a fluctuating exchange rate, you’ll still lose money. The banks take a commission every time you change money, so changing it into a foreign currency, then back again, will lose you money. I lost about $1.50 on $30 this way, which I’m still waiting to get back from you guys, by the way.

Comment by Ian — January 27, 2008 #
22

“Lucky you to learn these things the fun fun-facts way!”

Except for all the victims of this DH mess, who instead learned the hard way. Guess they don’t count.

Apparently DH have learned nothing about putting their foot in their mouth, yet again.

Comment by Gerlado — January 27, 2008 #
23

@22: And just how did you learn all that by being charged a few miserable dollars?!

Comment by Aaron — January 27, 2008 #
24

“Friday: If you charge somebody with an international credit card and then refund their money, by the time the money gets back on, the dollar will have weakened!”

Not really true I think. I actually made a 0.96 USD profit out of this. My first thought was indeed that this was due to a declined dollar, but that’s PURE nonsense of course. If that would have been the case, I would have lost money, wouldn’t I?

Comment by Bramz — January 28, 2008 #
25

This is cute and all, but the billing system is still messed up. I was charged for 2 years worth of hosting last week, and yes, that was handled promptly and on time. However, I have my account set to auto-renew itself for a year worth of hosting (which comes to $119.40 for the entire year), yet today I get charged $74.60 and it says I owe another $74.60 and that next month I will be charged another $74.60. I sent a reply to the billing department (well actually I just auto-replied to the address that it was sent from) because when you try to e-mail support@dreamhost.com, the e-mail gets rejected because of last weeks billing issues. I just want to let you know the problems are not over, and ask that someone please contact me today as I don’t want my credit to go bad on me x.x.

- Tony R.

Comment by Tony Rayo — January 28, 2008 #
26

I’m still waiting for my refund, or a response to my e-mails . . . or pretty much any sort of personal acknowledgement. It’s only $119.40, but I sure could use it right now.

Mark

Comment by Mark Hammermeister — January 28, 2008 #
27

On the 23rd, one of the 2 erroneous charges to my account was refunded. the other one still is nowhere to be seen. on the 24th, 4 days ago, a dreamhost billing serf wrote and said both refunds were processed within 15 seconds, on the 15th. That was 13 days ago! 7 business days ago! and why did one of them go through and one didn’t? And when will the other one?

Absolute bullshit.

Comment by steev — January 28, 2008 #
28

@16

Don’t tase me, bro!

Comment by G — January 28, 2008 #
29

I didn’t have more then $10.00 on my debit card so I didn’t actually get charged (because probably the bank said no) … but I really have to wonder, being around all Major DH Disasters (hacking, network drop, power outage, ddos attack, and this one) … WHAT’S NEXT ???

Maybe the buildings holding the servers will collapse and crush every hard-drive … or maybe Josh will play around with a “Delete All Accounts” little program and accidentally press Run while trying to kill a fly.

Isn’t waiting for a disaster exciting ? :)

Comment by Pirahna — January 28, 2008 #
30

If you charge somebody with an international credit card and then refund their money, by the time the money gets back on, the dollar will have weakened!

Haha, as someone who lives in the EU, and gets paid mostly in dollars, I’m aware of this. Oh so aware.

Speaking of dollar payouts, I’ve been meaning to ask, is there any chance someone with a fat finger did something to the rewards tracking system? I used to make a nice chunk of change (Enough to pay for my hosting with money to spare) off a few links and some forum sigs, but since about june last year, zero, zip, nada. And since I had a downline with about a dozen people who also made the odd referral who also completely stopped, I know it’s not just me.

To be fair, the forum sigs which were probably the main source of referrals have been reduced in effectiveness because several hosts seem to have teams of posters shitting on dreamhost’s name whenever it comes up, and you have given them ammunition to use, especially lately.

Still it was a nice referral program while it lasted. If you can do anything to energize it for me, it would be appreciated, since I still use and plan to continue using dreamhost in the future (I wasn’t billed in advance, cos I’m already paid up through 2008)

Comment by Nestor — January 29, 2008 #
31

Wow more mocking. You really do never learn. I got my refund but as I understand, you’re still fucking a lot of people (by their own reports, anyway).

Good going. Keep up the good work. What an incredible guy you are.

Comment by MW is a dirty spammer — January 29, 2008 #
32

The part where we’re all supposed to feel sorry for you and your poor messed up merchant account is priceless.

Yeah, and nobody who got FUCKED by you this month “learned” anything in any “fun” way. Most of us hopefully learned to get the hell away from your company, though.

Comment by MW is a dirty spammer — January 29, 2008 #
33

>several hosts seem to have teams of posters shitting on dreamhost’s name whenever it comes up

Do you really believe that there are not many, many *legitimately* pissed off former Dreamhost customers out there, and that the only reason people are disparaging them in forums is that they’ve been hired to do so?

Wow. That’s… wow.

Comment by MW is a dirty spammer — January 29, 2008 #
34

Do you really believe that there are not many, many *legitimately* pissed off former Dreamhost customers out there, and that the only reason people are disparaging them in forums is that they’ve been hired to do so?

Well that happens too, but on the board I was thinking most of the negative comments initially were coming from people openly involved with other hosts.

Comment by Nestor — January 29, 2008 #
35

I have faxed you guys, emailed you guys, and so on. You have told me countless times that you will get to me within 24 hours well it has been a HELL of a lot more than 24 hours. Still no refund of charges from the bank. RENT IS DUE FIX IT NOW!!!

Comment by Jonathan — January 29, 2008 #
36

Thanks for the laugh, Josh, I enjoyed your post and don’t listen to the naysayers who want you to talk in a corporate monotone. Keep it light and honest.

Comment by anon — January 29, 2008 #
37

Hey Nester, denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. LOL!

Comment by Help Please — January 29, 2008 #
38

Well Dreamhost said they don’t have a phone number for support. However I have a false charge on my account that I refuse to pay and the number that was attached to it was 714-451-8814. This may be their fax number but I’m hoping to get a hold of a live person and get this straighted out since I have not heard back a response in over 3 days.

- Tony R.

Comment by Tony Rayo — January 29, 2008 #
39

Turns out it’s a voicemail box and it is currently full (no wonder). However I think I figured out what happened… I had my account set to auto-renew in Jan, however for some reason they split the cost of the year fee among Jan and Feb… as long as they don’t charge me after this for the rest of the year, it will be fine.

- Tony R.

Comment by Tony Rayo — January 29, 2008 #
40

good

Comment by 数据恢复 — January 29, 2008 #
41

good

Comment by 心理咨询 — January 29, 2008 #
42

Coursework
http://www.masterpapers.com/coursework.php
Frequently the reason behind the desire to write this type of paper remains unclear. However, once the events are recounted and recorded, it becomes clear that the writer is striving to find the universal truth.Coursework

Comment by Coursework — January 30, 2008 #
43

^^^ That smells like comment spam

Comment by Nestor — January 30, 2008 #
44

o you think you servers are secure with DH in Los Angeles? Think again: http://www.earthquakecountry.info/video/eqcla.html

Comment by mr_x — January 30, 2008 #
45

What’s really amusing is if you credit a cancelled credit card, it can take weeks or months for the actual intend refund to end up in the hands of the recipient.

Comment by mohnkern — January 30, 2008 #
46

So, Any idea at all when I will get my money back. I even tried to help you guys and asked the bank to fix the problem. They said your answer that it could take 5-7 days is complete BS. They said you should be able to do it right now. So what the hell is the hold up.

Comment by Jonathan — January 30, 2008 #
47

I can find no way to email this Josh Jones character personally, and I have a personal request (not that personal, just a bit personal).

I’m a big fan of the posts on this blog, and I was wondering if you would take requests.

Basically I’m doing a module in my final year about computer security, the coursework for which is setting up a web server with shell and ftp access and then defending it from the attacks of the other students, while trying to attack others myself.

It occurred to me that if there’s anyone who knows their way around securing webservers with ftp and shell access then it would be the dreamhost guys!

I don’t want anyone to do this for me (I have the rest of the group for that), but I would really appreciate any kind of insight into the problem from a commercial perspective.

Many thanks, yadda yadda yadda, Sam du Rose (loyal DH customer of three years)

Comment by Sam du Rose — January 31, 2008 #
48

#47 BWAHAHAHAHA! Gotta love that sarcasm.

Comment by Help Please — January 31, 2008 #
49

I KNOW HOW TO FIX YOUR PERSONALITY CONFLICT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS

In reading the piles of comments in the last 3 posts, I’ve come to the realization, as many probably have, that your customer base is polarized into two groups: The fun-loving, joke-appreciating group, and the down-to-business, corporate-manners group. While I fall into the former, I can certainly understand the tide of fury that has swept over a good chunk of your customers.

So, here is how to satisfy both groups without losing what makes DH DH:

status.dreamhost.com: Serious, business toned straight talk.
blog.dreamhost.com: Light hearted, jokey straight talk.

You’re already kind of doing this, but the two services need to overlap on issues like this, and you’ve gotta figure out how to push each group in the right direction. From some of the posts I’ve read, the “serious” crowd was having a tough time finding information elsewhere, so they eventually wandered into the blog. Obviously, wrong place for this category of person.

In any case, keep up the transparency.

Comment by Bobby — February 1, 2008 #
50

Hang on Josh, hang on team.
You guys can make mistake like any one of us, you still have one of the greatest business attitude around (I mean that in a good way).

I’d rather pay for an awesome and ever-improving service that has some rare screw ups than for a crappy or mediocre one that stays the same forever more.

Rock on,
Oli.

Comment by Olivier — February 1, 2008 #

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Five Fun Facts For Friday

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