I think you are being totally unfair.

If they auto renewed, then YOU set them up to auto renew.

If they auto renewed, this means you let them keep your billing information on file.

They spam me once every week to remind me that my auto renew domains are going to auto renew.

And my own personal anecdote, right before one of my domains auto-renewed I got a polite call from a CSR making sure that I was aware the domain was going to auto renew.

I had this happen to me as well. I gave them a call and they redacted it and refunded me the money. I consider it pretty suspicious activity, considering every email I got from them was telling me it would expire. But just give them a call and they'll set it straight.