Pissed off this evening. Well, for the past three evenings, ever since the underwhelming Dreamhost shut down the Scribble Designs website. I came home from work to receive the following message:

Your script found at /server-path/index.php (your WordPress installation) has been exploited and was being used to send out spam emails through our system. We have disabled the script to help prevent our servers from being used for this purpose, as it is adversely affecting the stability of our mail system. Please do not re-enable it until the security hole has been fixed (you can go to http://www.wordpress.org for upgrade instructions). We thank you for your attention to this matter.

That’s my business website, fools! Why’d you shut it down? WordPress doesn’t generate email spam, does it?

Well, it doesn’t bloody seem to. I googled for a solution, hit the support forum and the WordPress Codex. Nothing.

I emailed back, asking for an in-depth answer. Why my website? What led you to diagnose this problem and pinpoint my website? Was a plugin at fault? What response did I get:

You’ll need to contact the authors of wordrpess for more information on patching the software. We do not provide support for third party scripts.

Don’t provide support for third party scripts??? You just offer a one-click install of the damned thing. You’re reknowned as a WordPress/blog hosting company. The guys at WordPress actually recommend DreamHost. They know WordPress well enough to diagnose a blog as a source of spam, but not well enough to advise of a solution. Hmmmm.

Oh yeah, and I’m sure Matt Mullenweg loves to wade in and intervene in individual support calls. Hi Matt! I’m having this problem with Dreamhost…..

So, as of right now, I’m a web designer without a website, all thanks to those lovable chimps at Dreamhost! No straight answers. No fault resolution. Oh, and did I mention that their servers are running at a snail’s pace at the moment?

Do I get my money back when I decide to move to another – better – host? I’ll keep you posted.