CHRISTOPHE V.

I had been a client of Network Solutions for more than 23 years. They were not hosting my website (thank God!) but my domain name was registered with them. The problem was that the company that had originally registered the domain with them in my name was not around anymore. They had put my name as part of the tech team, but not as primary contact. Nonetheless, I was still the owner of the domain name and I was the person paying the bills.
Recently, because I realized their registration fees were actually much higher than other companies (seriously, how could they possibly justify that?), I was thinking of transferring my domain name to another company. When I went to turn off the automatic payment renewal in my account, I realized that, EVEN AS THE PAYING OWNER OF THE DOMAIN NAME, I COULD NOT CONTROL THAT OPTION, AND I COULD NOT DO ANYTHING AT ALL ON MY OWN DOMAIN NAME. I contacted them. They explained that I had to be the primary contact in order to do that, and that I had to fill a form and provide specific documents to transfer the primary contact from the former company to my name. I then explained that the former company didn't exist anymore and I was the only person handling everything, therefore, no one would be able to provide signatures or documents on behalf of the other company.
OMG. It was like opening a can of worms. I spent the past SEVERAL MONTHS being bounced from office to office, explaining my situation again and again, exchanging email after email, being told different stories, that the issue was simple and almost resolved, then it was not, then that the docs I sent were not the right ones, then that I needed to get some of them notarized which I did all this to finally have them tell me that the documents were missing the "clause of indemnisation" which I had no idea what it was.
All this to simply transfer a name, even as my account CLEARLY SHOWED THAT I WAS THE OWNER AND THE FINANCIAL SOURCE OF THE DOMAIN NAME.
After all this time and money wasted for absolutely no result, I was so frustrated with these guys that I had enough. I could see this game was going nowhere.
I had to ABANDON MY DOMAIN NAME. After 23 years. I replaced it with another one, registered with another company. Network Solutions bureaucracy is absolutely APPALLING, and their fees are absurd. Talking to these guys, day after day, was like talking to robots, who, as polite as they are, are just cogs in a big machine that is simply incapable of handling simple issues. This company is from the past, seriously. I will never, ever do business with them again.