One day in October, Kindle owner Ryan couldn’t log in to his Amazon account. He reset his password: no luck. According to Amazon representatives, the account is now “on hold,” but no one can tell him what that means. He was told that someone at Amazon would call him back within 24 hours. That was almost a month ago.

Amazon representatives claim that this case is unprecedented. Perhaps the particulars of his case are from Amazon’s end, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Kindle owners being locked out of their virtual bookshelves.

I have been a Kindle owner for nearly a year now.

I was recently unable to login to my account with the message that the password was “denied”. I reset my password and still received the same denied message even though I had an email confirming my reset.

I called Amazon and was told my account was put on hold, but they couldn’t tell me why. I was then asked for some basic information and told that an Account Specialist would be contacting me within 24 hours. This was October 25th.

I no longer have access to the nearly $1000 in Kindle content I have purchased. I disputed all of the Amazon credit card charges that I could, however there is still about 10 months of purchases I have lost because of this.

I have filed a complaint with the BBB, emailed everyone I could at Amazon, called the Customer Service Line, the Kindle “Executive” support line, and Corporate. I have been apologized to by everyone I have spoken to and been told that they have never seen this situation before.

None of them can tell me if I will ever receive the content I have paid for.

If this is what the ebook revolution looks like, I’ll buy the written history in paperback.

We’ve certainly seen this situation before, at least from the consumer’s perspective:

Who Ate My Amazon Account?
Amazon Locks You Out Of Kindle Account, Ignores You For A Month

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