Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/19/2023

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Dreamhost has been my hosting service for over 15 years. I use their service for my email, ********************* Eight days ago my email stopped working - I can not receive or send emails and I have not made any changes to my account. I tried to contact them by logging into my account but my password does not work. I can't reset the password because the reset instructions would go to my email that DOESN"T WORK. I sent three separate customer service emails over the course of the past week with no response. I informed them that I would be contacting the BBB because I have no other recourse or way to communicate with them. They do not have a customer service phone number. I need my email to work for important personal and work communication.

  Business Response

  Date: 06/20/2023

  Thanks for writing.  You've contacted us about a domain name that we host, however neither your name nor your email address match the point of contact for that DreamHost account.
  
  Out of respect for our users' privacy and to ensure the integrity of their data, we are only able to discuss account details with designated account holders.
  
  If you know who created this account originally, we recommend you reach out to them for a resolution as they may be able to provide more information as to its status.  They can also contact us directly and we'll be happy to work with them.
  
  We're sorry we can't be more helpful in this case.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 06/20/2023

  Please note that I have provided my cell phone number and an alternate email address to reach me so we can resolve this.  There is only one other email associated with this account and it is ********************.  However, we are in the same situation - the password we have for this email ********************** does not work and we can not reset it because you send the password reset to the email that DOES NOT WORK.  We have been customers for over 15 years and have provided multiple ways for you to contact us to resolve this issue and it requires someone from Dreamhost to be proactive and provide some customer service.  I am certain you can understand how much this affects our day to day functioning when we can not send or receive emails.  So, to ensure you have all of the details - we have two email accounts - ******************** and ********************* neither of which have worked for 9 days.  You can reach me directly at ************ or at my work email ******************* or you can reach ***** at his work email *********************************.  Please take a moment to apply common sense and contact your customer.  Thank you!

  Business Response

  Date: 06/21/2023

  Thanks for following up.
  
  We understand the situation and apologize that we can't be more helpful in this forum.
  
  We do need to have the account holder contact us directly at ***********************************************
  
  They should select "I can't log in to my DreamHost account" from the dropdown box, and they should provide an alternate email address where they can be reached.  Our security team will then work with them to verify their identity and grant ****** to the account.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/10/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  i do not advertise my site i am building more then one site which are in an internal network i should not be experiencing 92% ram usage no-one is visiting my site you cant expect me to pay more when i am not making use of the site to gain money (business), by the way i do not like motorcycles if you have a problem with this let me know .

  Business Response

  Date: 05/11/2023

  It looks like you've been in contact with our technical support team to help troubleshoot high resource usage on one or more of your websites.  They've advised you which domains on your account had seen high memory usage, and recommended that you disable or remove some of the plugins that you had installed which appear to be the root cause.
  
  We hope that guidance was helpful - please respond to our technical support team if this doesn't improve the performance of your sites.
  
  Finally, we respect your decision to not like motorcycles.  They're not for everyone.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/05/2023

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I am currently in the process of suing the ******** Unified Court System. I had a script on my website that would send emails to the ***************************** checking up on my complaints due to said Committe choosing to ignore my complaints and not even investigate nor act on and just responding with mediocre & uneffecitive actions. My script, which is federally protected speech was reported and my website was deleted, after being charged for hosting the day prior. My SSL certificate would also be removed which I paid for. This is illegal and retaliation for exercising my federally protected free speech. My host (DreamHost) would wipe my website after attempting to extort me a couple months prior for no valid nor legitimate reason.

  Business Response

  Date: 05/08/2023

  You have indicated to our technical support team that you intend to take legal action against **.  It is our policy to  cease communication when presented with legal threats and to direct all communications through our legal counsel. Please have your counsel submit a formal declaration of your concerns to the contact address located at ***************************************************************** and we will follow up as appropriate.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:04/17/2023

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  We have almost **** customers under our domain name. Our domain has been registered with dreamhost for over 15 years. On Thursday, April 13, 2023, they disabled our domain name and literally told us that they would not tell us why. We decided to transfer the domain to another provider but Dreamhost LOCKED our domain so that we could not even transfer it. They repeated that they would not talk to us. THen, they disabled their chat feature in our customer support panel. Talk about slamming the door in your face. Meanwhile, almost **** of our business customers turned to social media complaining about our service and company since their websites are now down. Under Dreamhost's TOS they agree to put a "coming soon" message for websites that do not resolve. They did not do this for us or our **** business customers. Instead, they gave us an ugly "website cannot be found." It has been 5 days now of constant emailing and faxing to Dreamhost tech support and general counsel--each of which arrogantly refuse to acknowledge our communication or explain this action. We are making a very large claim against our disaster insurance policy and will let the lawyers take it from here. Be advised that the phone number listed for this business is out of service and that the company address is a rented private post box in another city. All we have asked for is a phone call but still they refuse to speak with a customer of over 15 years. How do you think they will treat you when you have a problem?

  Business Response

  Date: 04/18/2023

  We'd like to look into this further for you, but we're not able to locate your account.

  Your complaint didn't indicate the domain name in question, your email address doesn't match any accounts in our system, and there are no active DreamHost accounts under your name.

  Please let us know which domain name this is regarding and we'll be happy to investigate.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:03/09/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  DreamHost, out of the blue, falsely stated I had violated their terms of service:> This is a message to let you know that we noticed some prohibited data being stored on your hosting server. As per our Terms of Service - Acceptable Usage Policy at ******************************************************************* (personal backups) :> With the exception of DreamHost Dedicated Servers, Cloud products, DreamPress accounts, and VPS instances provisioned on or after November 12th, 2014, the customer agrees to make use of ******************** Web Hosting servers primarily for the purpose of hosting a website, and associated email functions. Data uploaded must be primarily for this purpose. DreamHost Web Hosting servers are not intended as a data backup or archiving service. I responded their message seemed to be sent in error. No personal backups/archives were ever present on my site for 15+ years as their customer. All content stored on their servers was original material created and curated specifically for my site as a reference for my clients.I received no response from DreamHost. 6 days later, my site stopped functioning with error messages that my files were missing. After contacting them again, I requested a full credit for the current term of my service ($287.76) and termination of my account, and received a terse response:> Unfortunately, while the [data] has been here for a very long time, our Admins were forced to offload the image gallery location due to the shared web server '******' getting very close to the disk space limit on the machine Effectively, they deleted my files because they needed space without regard for my site's operability.I requested a full refund and instead was offered $59.95, no apology, and no admission of error on DreamHost's part. The value of the original IP destroyed was worth thousands of dollars.Subsequent requests with them have gone unanswered. I want to ensure other customers do not face such issues. I have closed my account.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/10/2023

  Per your request, we did issue a pro-rated refund in the form of a $59.95 payment via PayPal on February 22nd, 2023. PayPal's records then show that you refunded that payment back to ** the following day on Feburary 23rd, 2023.

  We have again today (March 10th, 2023) re-issued a $59.95 payment to your PayPal account. Please do not refund this payment.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 03/10/2023

  My original request was for the full term amount of $287.76 in lieu of recovery of the destroyed assets, valued at over $4000, and loss of business. Further, I did not send back the partial refund. Paypals system erroneously claimed I had. I communicated this to DreamHost on February 23, and after no response again on February 28, again with no response.

  I have tried to avoid legal action by pursuing a reasonable outcome for an entirely avoidable situation caused solely by DreamHosts negligence so far to no avail.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/13/2023

  As our billing department communicated previously, we are only able to provide a pro-rated refund.  We can confirm that our $59.95 payment to you was re-sent successfully on March 10th via PayPal:
  
  March 10, 2023 1:58:30 PM PST
  Transaction ID: *****************
  Payment Status: COMPLETED
  Amount: $59.95
  
  If you have any additional questions about this payment or need further assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out to our billing and technical support teams via your DreamHost account's control panel.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 03/14/2023

  The value of the damage caused by DreamHost to my business far exceeds the partial refund noted here. See previous comments.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:01/01/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On the 2nd of Jan, 2023, I was charged NZD329.17. This is a fraudulent payment as I don't have an account with this company, never asked to be charged by them, and wasn't aware of their existence prior to this charge. They only have email support for 'non-customers' which I find very suspicious when trying to resolve a fraudulent payment. I've been trying to get in contact with them so they will refund this money but nothing has worked so far.

  Business Response

  Date: 01/04/2023

  Credit card fraud is something we take very seriously and we are happy to refund any fraudulent charges.
  
  We've set up a web page to help address any unexpected credit card charges.  In fact, the *** to this page appears directly on all credit card statements alongside any charges that are made to DreamHost:
  *********************************************************
  
  Once you're able to provide basic identifying information to help us locate the charge in our system, we'll then be able to issue a full refund.  Depending on your credit card's issuing institution, refunds can take anywhere from a few hours to several days to be reflected on your statement.
  
  Thanks for contacting DreamHost and please let us know if there's anything else that we can do for you.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:12/09/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  In early October 2022, I was exploring website hosting plans on the DreamHost website. I began what I thought was a checkout process by selecting one of their hosting plans. However, after selecting the plan, I decided not to follow through with my purchase. At this point, I realized that there is no way to cancel or delete a plan once you have selected it. Within minutes of selecting the plan, I tried to delete my info and an account that I had used previously. DreamHost would not let me delete my information until I paid for the plan. I immediately contacted DreamHost support to request cancelation. Despite numerous request to cancel the account, DreamHost has refused to cancel the account. During the checkout process, I hadn't even provided by credit card information, nor had I completed any purchase process. In other words, to date, DreamHost hasn't provided me with any services. Yet DreamHost has sent me numerous emails and phone calls demanding payment. I want DreamHost to delete my account and to stop harassing me. Below is a copy of one of many emails they have sent to me:"This is just a notice that your DreamHost account #******* ("*****'s Account") has a balance due of $7.99 on it.You can pay your balance securely and instantly online at: https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=billing.payment | NOTE: Accounts overdue for 60 days will be suspended for non-payment.If your account becomes suspended you will need to pay the FULL balance to have it reactivated.We can't guarantee that we'll maintain backups on disabled or suspended accounts for any length of time. Please take immediate action now to avoid the possibility of permanent data loss.Recommended: Enable or update AutoPay for your DreamHost account via PayPal,debit, or credit card!"

  Business Response

  Date: 12/12/2022

  After a review of the account it appears there were two hosting plans that were inadvertently created.  The first was created 10/4/2022 and the second was created 10/7/2022.  Charges for only one of these two hosting plans had been cancelled, and the remaining plan was the source of the $7.99 balance due.
  
  We thank you for being a long-time customer (dating back to 2014!)  We have just cancelled this account and can confirm that nothing is owed to DreamHost.  The balance due is now $0.00 and all hosting accounts with us are closed.
  
  If there's anything else that we can do for you, please contact our technical support team.  We're happy to help.
  

  Customer Answer

  Date: 12/12/2022

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.

  
  Regards,
  
  *******************************
  
   

  
  

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/05/2022

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Company represents itself as: "guaranteeing 100% uptime." in their legal terms of service: https://www.dreamhost.com/legal/terms-of-service/However, they are now responsible for one of the longest-running hostage outages in internet history: https://cloud7.news/hosting/dreamhost-outage-continues The website I have been hosting with Dreamhost has been down/non-functioning for two weeks now, along with countless others. This has wasted dozens of hours of my time dealing with customers, and directly cost me hundreds of dollars in lost business (as I released a $9,000 music project involving hundreds of hours of people's time the day prior to Dreamhost's outage.)The company has failed to provide any resolution for customers, any useful status updates, or the opportunity to terminate a multi-year hosting contract (signed based on the premise of the company delivering against its written promises of 100% uptime) without penalty. They have also failed to respond to requests for appropriate compensation for damage.I am requesting:1. financial compensation for damages incurred to my business 2. the opportunity to migrate my data to a better-run provider with a full refund for the full hosting period

  Business Response

  Date: 08/05/2022

  As a result of a recent hardware failure we have been recovering data from server backups.
  
  The scope of this outage has been very limited.  Among our fleet of over ****** managed servers, this incident has impacted a *single* shared hosting server.  While it is an unfortunately slow process resulting in some visible server latency, data restoration is still well underway.
  
  While this process completes, all customer data is online and available.  We have been documenting the restoration process at https://www.dreamhoststatus.com/
  
  > I am requesting: 1. financial compensation for damages incurred to my business
  
  Per the "Guaranteed Uptime" language in our Terms of Service, all customers are entitled to compensation for unplanned downtime.  To claim this compensation, please file a ticket with our support team.
  
  If you would like to close your account, we've created an article in our knowledgebase that explains the process at https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215202457-Closing-your-account-overview
  
  > 2. the opportunity to migrate my data to a better-run provider with a full refund for the full hosting period
  
  DreamHost customers have full ownership and control of their data.  They are not locked in to the DreamHost platform, and may choose to migrate their hosting to any other hosting and domain registration provider at any time.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 08/05/2022

  1. If only 1 server of ****** was impacted, why have you not taking steps to move us onto servers that actually work? 
  
  2. I have already contacted your billing team and did not receive a response. Additionally, your server failure has cost dozens of hours of my time (currently I'm paid about $200/hr) as well as a ballpark of hundreds of dollars in lost revenue. It appears that your guarantee involves reimbursing me for about $5 of hosting fees. I do not consider that an acceptable resolution in terms of acknowledging the customer harm incurred.
  
  3. It is unclear to me from the previously shared message, especially considering that my site literally STILL DOES NOT WORK and you have shared NO TIMELINE FOR WHEN YOU WILL FIX IT, whether there is a financial penalty for moving away from Dreamhost in terms of the multiyear commitment that was made based on false advertising promises of 100% uptime.
  
  I will be escalating tonight to the *** & WA state attorney general.
  
  Thank you.

  Business Response

  Date: 08/06/2022

  Work on the restoration is proceeding successfully and data continues to be restored.
  
  Per our terms of service, if an account is closed before the end of its term, any unused portion of the previous payment will remain on an account in the form of a credit.  That credit can then be applied toward any future charges incurred with DreamHost, including services like hosting fees, domain registration and renewal fees, etc.
  
  It appears you've been in contact with our technical support team and they are actively working to move your account to another server.  Please let them know if there's anything further they can do for you.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 08/08/2022

  
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I found this business's behavior dissatisfactory, but the technical support team has (finally) resolved the issue after numerous requests spanning 2 weeks. This company should have resolved the issue far, far sooner and provided useful crisis communication. 
  
  Regards,
  
  ***********************
  
   
  

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/30/2022

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I signed up for a DreamHost.com account and canceled after a few days. They apparently kept billing me, even though I had no web hosting or services. Now they keep sending me emails, threatening me, over $14 that I don't owe. Make them stop harassing me. I want the $14 back that I initially paid and for them to stop trying to scam me out of another $14.

  Business Response

  Date: 08/01/2022

  We can confirm that this account has not been closed by the account holder and is still active.
  
  Our records show that the account holder *began* the process of closing their account, but then backed out of it and did not complete the process.
  
  The process for closing an account is a quick one and is documented with illustrations in our knowledgebase: https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/214518328-Closing-a-Shared-hosting-plan
  
  Once this process has been completed the account will be closed, and no further charges will be incurred.