Network Solutions Charged domain "reinstatement" fee of $30+ and claimed I cannot reuse my domain with another provider for 75 days Internet

I have used Network Solutions for decades. Last time I renewed my domain subscription was 9 years ago. The domain expired 5 days ago. They say they sent me warnings to my old email address, which is unusable. So they asked for a "reinstatement" fee of over $30. When I asked if I could just use another domain registration provider, the person said that I cannot use the domain for 75 days. Don't know if that's a lie or not, but it sounded like a pure blackmail.

They would not wave the reinstatement unless I subscribed to their "search engine" registration program of $100 a month. So I decided to pay for one year only, with came to $68 including the reinstatement fee. As soon as my domain is up, I am switching the domain registration to my account service provider who also does domain registration, FOR FREE.

Then I will call Network Solutions back to ask them for reimbursing me at least the $38 for the one-year subscription, and I will see if they will be any more customer-oriented.

For all those who are dealing with domain registration, DO NOT USE NETWORK SOLUTIONS, they are a BIG RIPOFF company, charging for domain registration when it could be gotten free elsewhere, and on top of that charging the bizzare "REINSTATEMENT" fee. This is worse than the various late feed credit companies charge.