Alternatives to ShareIt/MyCommerce/Digital River

[sft234]

Why is this significant?
1. The MSA 6.3 claims that the company is at the Cologne address, but how can we have a valid contract with a legal partner that no longer exists at that location?
2. It could mean we're witnessing the perfect crime, with no real accountability.

Company headquarters ("Firmensitz") and business address ("Geschäftsadresse" - so contact address) are two different things. The company headquarters still are in Cologne. So the legal headquarters of the company still is Cologne.

When you go to "Scheidtweilerstr. 4, D-50933 Köln" in streetview, you can see the the "Digital River" nameplate (4th from below) down at the right front corner of the while square building (on left side of the big "ERGO" letter on the lower connecting building) - in front of the buildings there's a big square. The streetview recording is labeled dated October 2022.

Maybe someone of you lives in Köln and can go there and visit them physically?

[yps]

It's just over an hour from here. But I'm afraid I'm too busy with my refunds

By the way, looking at the Handelsregister, there is another authorized officer (Prokuristin) who appears to be German, based in Cologne, and lawyer by profession. She is/was head of the legal department of DR GmbH. Maybe she is easier to get hold of and ask for a comment?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kerstin- ... bdomain=de

Her LinkedIn profile says she stopped being a Prokuristin for Digital River GmbH in September 2024, but she is still listed as one in the Handelsregister as of today.

[MichaelPh]

Why is this significant?
1. The MSA 6.3 claims that the company is at the Cologne address, but how can we have a valid contract with a legal partner that no longer exists at that location?
2. It could mean we're witnessing the perfect crime, with no real accountability.

Company headquarters ("Firmensitz") and business address ("Geschäftsadresse" - so contact address) are two different things. The company headquarters still are in Cologne. So the legal headquarters of the company still is Cologne.

When you go to "Scheidtweilerstr. 4, D-50933 Köln" in streetview, you can see the the "Digital River" nameplate (4th from below) down at the right front corner of the while square building (on left side of the big "ERGO" letter on the lower connecting building) - in front of the buildings there's a big square. The streetview recording is labeled dated October 2022.

Maybe someone of you lives in Köln and can go there and visit them physically?

I was there on October 9. The office formally exists, but they don't come there.

[IaES]

Credit notes as sent by DR are like "reversed invoices", so they are the same thing as an invoice (created by you and sent to them), just created by the other party (and sent to you).

In 20 years of using shareit I've never received any document that could be seen as an invoice or credit note. Around the 3rd day of each month I receive a sales report that listed the amounts sold and the amount they intended to pay. That report contained no wording such as invoice or credit note. It included no VAT number or anything like that.

I have worked with 2Checkout/avangate over the years and they always generated a proper (reverse) invoice. But Shareit DR never did.

Maybe they did it for german business but not for those outside germany?

[IaES]

Also, what VAT are you talking about? Is that the VAT on shareit's fee? Or the vat on the price of licences you sold to shareit? No. I never had that either. Probably because I'm not in Germany.

[yps]

It's the VAT on my revenue (minus their fee). So when the net amount was €10,000, they actually paid me €11,900, and I paid €1,900 output VAT, while they deducted €1,900 input tax. Just like a regular sales transaction inside the country. So yes, it only applies to German vendors, I think, because everybody else will operate under a reverse charge procedure.

My monthly report alwayes included a ZIP attachments with all kinds of Excel sheets (sales by product, etc.), plus a PDF file (_CREDITNOTE_<My Vendor ID>_<Date>.PDF) that acts as the reverse invoice. Attaching a redacted screenshot.

[grujicd]

In 20 years of using shareit I've never received any document that could be seen as an invoice or credit note. Around the 3rd day of each month I receive a sales report that listed the amounts sold and the amount they intended to pay. That report contained no wording such as invoice or credit note.

ShareIt was/is sending credit note with each sales report, but it's in attached zip. You can check your "MyCommerce payment report" emails and you should see a zip there. It also includes few more excel files with order details. I'm from Serbia, so both outside Germany and outside EU. No VAT in my case.

However, you also say that you received these sales reports around 3rd of the month. I typically received them between 8-10th. It's possible they had different classes of customers for one reason or another. I started selling through ShareIt in 2005, but afaik I opened account back in 1999 when I tried to sell my first software, unsuccessfully. Memory is fuzzy and these first emails are lost so I'm not 100% it was in fact ShareIt in 1999.

[Syncsro]

I have requested refunds for all transactions since 1 June. Looks like it's through, although there's no way I can check if customers got it back. We won't see our money, but digital river hopefully also not. I know digital river will try to charge me for every refund, but don't care, won't pay it anyway

[yps]

Are there any fees for refunds initiated by the vendor? I don't think so. (Other than DR keeping their margin for the original sale.)

The $25/$20 chargeback fee is only for chargebacks initiated by the end user or their bank, as far as I understand.

"Chargeback" means the reversal of a previously completed payment for a Transaction due to a dispute initiated by an End User, payment processor, third
party payment provider or financial institution.

[Ilmar]

A refund should not have chargeback fee then

[Syncsro]

I don't know, but don't care, actually they owe us also money for our affiliate account, reselling 3rd party software, I requested to close our affiliate account and pay. Is already 3 weeks ago, except request confirmation, nothing happened. So I guess this money is also gone

[tom2024]

I can confirm they are processing refunds

They are "processing" them in the sense of sending email. But money do not seem to appear back on credit cards since approx Oct 13. Previously it worked. Just FYI.

[sft234]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_River

https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/15/ ... _dry_hasnt

In August 2024, the new CEO, Barry Kasoff, was first noted on the e-commerce biz website. [25] Under his leadership, DigitalRiver has started claiming merchant debts are no longer to be recognized as valid obligations.

This means: the money will never be payed, since their lawyers claim they don't HAVE to pay since they rate merchant depts not as valid obligations.

Since DR doesn't care at all that everyone is leaving now it's clear that they know that there's no tomorrow. That's why it doesn't matter for them when the Digital River reputation goes to zero.

[Syncsro]

Shit. but I see in DR Control panel one huge minus revenue , so they confirm the refund, won't refund the Customer, and will charge me

[yps]

PayPal refunds still seem to work. Refunded someone yesterday and the money came back within a few hours.