So it's that time of year again. One of my domain names - the first one, the one I still use for e-mail and the like - is up for renewal.

I got an e-mail from the registrar (their reseller, rather) prompting for renewal, although with no detail on how to pay. I go to log into the website and none of my details work. I contact support, and apparently I don't have a customer account...

Once upon a time, I took up a hosting account. At the same time, I was prompted to register a domain name. They existed happily together for a while, although the hosting had frequent downtime and the support was poor. There was a dispute one year as to whether the name they had supplied with my hosting (whether I liked it or not), never quoted me for and never billed me for was included with the hosting package (I was happy to pay for it, if that would mean they wouldn't let it lapse again...).

When I took the hosting elsewhere, I left the name there to run some more of the period I'd paid. The next year they had some trouble remembering it needed renewal, and more trouble because their billing system didn't support a domain registration that wasn't associated with a hosting account. I tried to transfer it away, but after a few lost faxes they asked me to write to them and I gave up.

This year they've gone one better. Even though I was assured last time that they would soon be able to handle domain names on their own (and for new business they appear to manage), they didn't fix mine. My customer account looked like it had nothing on it so they deleted it. They did manage to send me the automated renewal notice, but the domain name is no longer on an account, so they're having trouble doing anything with it.

I'm going to renew, just to be safe, then having another go at prising it away from them so it can live with all my others.

In a move that is probably grounds for laughing or crying, when I asked how to transfer the domain name between registrars, they gave me the instructions for transferring in.

As if.