Network Solutions? No, I think they're the problem

Back on Oct. 29, 1999, I registered my first domain name, cyberlizard.org. I went with Network Solutions as they were the primary (only? I can't recall) domain name issuing authority. Every year since then, I have gone on their site and renewed my domain. Along the way they got a fancy management system that you had to log into, but I never bothered. I had moved several times along the way and changed internet service providers more times than that. Therefore my email address changed since I had registered my domain. But it didn't matter because I could just go on to their site and renew my domain, no problemo.

Until this year. One day, I went to go to my little site and the name wouldn't resolve. I got some stupid generic page telling me that it had expired. Ok, I'll just go renew it. Except that I couldn't. You now had to log in to their system in order to renew a domain. Good grief, what a pain in the butt. So I call them up and explain the situation and that I want to renew my domain. Nope, they said. Can't do that till you get in our system, which means that you need to update the email address on our records. How to do that? I have to fax a form, along with a copy of my ID and a copy of a utility bill. So I do this.

Along comes an email, telling me my request has been rejected. My water bill is in my wife's name. My wife handled all the stuff when we moved, including getting all our utilities. ALL of our bills are in her name. It's never been a problem before; we have the same last name, live at the same address, what's the big deal? So I call them up. Well, according to Network Solutions, it is a big deal. Or, rather, no deal. They refuse to let me renew my domain without a matching utility bill. I explain that I don't have any bills that will match, they've all got my wife's name on them. In that case, they explain, we can send you a form to transfer the domain to her name.

So get this; they ask me what email address they can send it to. So they are going to send me a form that I can then transfer control of the entire domain to anyone I want, all with less verification than they require for me to give them my money and renew the damn domain!

Where is the logic in this world? Please, tell me. I really want to move there.