JRM, I agree with rlparker, and having worked as a web hosting executive for a couple of years, I am not too surprised about your reaction, but I also know why this problem occurs.
First off, I'd just like to clarify that Dreamhost wouldn't be committing "theft" if they failed to provide you with the service that they offered, if anything, it would be considered *fraud*. Fraud occurs when one party of a transaction intentionally misrepresents the goods or services they claim to exchange with the other party. Other conditions also have to be met, but I won't bore you with the legal stuff.
Fortunately for you, the customer, there are regulations in place that specify the time frame during which a merchant (Dreamhost) is to ship the goods that you purchased, or otherwise render the service(s) that you have paid for; these regulations vary depending on the payment method you chose, and again, I won't bore you with the details, but please simply note that in most circumstances, the merchant is required to render service (activate your account) *before* they cash in the payment you have sent them. If you paid via a third-party processor (PayPal), Dreamhost must wait to accept the payment (or transfer the payment to their bank account) until they have activated your account. Until such time, you have the opportunity to cancel the payment that you have posted without much trouble, simply by contacting PayPal. Regulations governing credit card transactions are stricter for the merchant, and a little more clear cut, with more specific time frames during which the merchant is to fulfill your order, and it is usually easier for the customer to cancel the payment, even after the merchant has rendered the services, if the customer feels that they are not as the merchant has described them, or for a number of other reasons.
Therefore, you are not actually at risk of losing your money if Dreamhost does in fact fail to provide the services that you ordered.
Now, I agree with rlparker that to assume that Dreamhost will not honor their sales agreement with you because they did not process your request outside of normal business hours is more than unreasonable. Your concern in general, however, that a company might defraud you, even though you are an honest customer, is not nearly as unreasonable. It's not out of the question that a company can do such a thing, and there *are* companies out there who have such illegitimate business practices. I can assure you that Dreamhost is not one of those companies, since those companies are surely not around for a very long time, and certainly don't have a *customer base* with community forums and a support wiki, and all that, for the reasons that I stated above.
Lastly, I would like to mention that fraud can go both ways: it can come from the company, or it can come from the customer. With the advent of Internet transactions, where the credit card is not actually present with the merchant, combined with an increase in the sale of online services, such as web hosting, credit card fraud is an enormous concern for any online business. Since the person who orders the service is not actually present with the merchant, so the merchant can verify their identity, some people exploit this situation and use stolen credit card numbers to order services online. This is so widespread that law enforcement rarely, if ever, is able to find the perpetrators when the transaction amounts are so low.
When credit card fraud occurs, the consumer is completely protected from it, in most cases; the merchant is responsible for verifying the validity of the payment, and therefore the merchant has to foot the bill in case the payment turns out to be fraudulent.
Because credit cards are so widely used, banks can afford to quickly terminate merchants who show too many incidents of credit card fraud, which basically puts them out of business, since they will no longer be able to accept credit cards anywhere.
Because of this, merchants must come up with clever ways to verify payment to protect themselves from being terminated, and balance this requirement against cost as well as customer satisfaction. It is extremely comforting to me to hear that Dreamhost is waiting for your faxed authorization form to be processed in spite of your obvious dissatisfaction with the situation, because this means that their business will be around for a long time, which also benefits you, of course.
Of course, you will have a hard time getting *any* business person, including the BBB, to treat your allegation of "they steal peoples money" very seriously once you explain that it was a PayPal payment and it's been only 35 hours since you "tried to sign up", but you should feel free to spend your time with that process if you want irrespective of the fact that you can likely resolve the matter with Dreamhost directly with the same amount of effort.