I had a similar experience with one of my client's domains on hostpapa.com. They have needless levels of complexity in who you can communicate with, who can act

I had a similar experience with one of my client's domains on hostpapa.com. They have needless levels of complexity in who you can communicate with, who can actually action any changes, and everything reply seems to be delayed by a day or more. This means that simple conversations and requests can take several days to complete. They also started conjuring up previously unmentioned fees at one point, which had to be paid to one or other completely separate departments. In the end, the domain went into redemption through them dicking about with forwarding emails back and forth and opening new tickets, and my client (through stubbornness as much as anything) refused to pay the $95 to release it. It was eventually snapped up by a domain squatter when it expired, and I fear it shall remain there forever, since I doubt anyone will pay $1.5k for a relatively obscure name.