Alternatives to ShareIt/MyCommerce/Digital River

[sft234]

So the whistleblowers were right with end of January

[ssec]

How do we make them pay for this? They sold our products and did not pay for them.

[sft234]

How do we make them pay for this? They sold our products and did not pay for them.

You're pretty late to the party. Most haven't been paid since mid July already. Merchants haven't received owed money beginning at a few 10k up to one million.

You'll probably never see your money again.

What you can do: Report Digital River to the police both in Germany (Cologne) and Minnesota USA. Call the Amtsgericht in Köln. File a "Mahnbescheid". Take a lawyer and try to take them to court. The first filed court cases will take place in February.

[sft234]

What someone posted early in the other thread seems to have become true.

Original post:
viewtopic.php?t=614929&start=90

A bit more research has shown WHAT the guys at DigitalRiver Inc. likely plan to do:

In summer, Barry Kasoff has taken over DigitalRiver Inc from Siris capital. (both cooperated in other cases in past).
Barry’s special skill is the “dirty work” (breaking contracts, firing employees without severance, etc), he is renowned as a “Terminator” of companies.

The german “DigitalRiver GmbH” mainly runs the “MyCommerce” platform, reselling software of small to medium software developers.
Siris and Barry decided to terminate DigitalRiver GmbH, steal ~ 50 Mio Eur from their customers, thus making a huge profit out of it.
The tricky plan seems to be:
- Some years back in time, DigitalRiver GmbH guaranteed for 100 Mio USD which DigitalRiver Inc has borrowed, due January 31st 2025. DR Gmbh officially reported that in their last annual statement of 2022.
- DigitalRiver GmbH could never realistically pay it back, but it can officially "assume" that the mother company will re-finance it, therefore it can claim to be solvent and continue operating.
- In August, Barry purchased DigitalRiver Inc from Siris.
- Now, since August DigitalRiver simply stopped to pay any money they owed to software companies. This was on direct order of Barry. Thus, they keep some ~ 50 Mio Eur money (equalling roughly 3 months of transactions – as of course customers sooner or later run away…). This of course breaks all contracts, but it is not directly a criminal act (so its hard to go to jail for it).
- From August to January, on Barry’s order, they tell all kinds of lies to customers, playing for time (like “we’ll solve it soon” (a lie), “we’ll pay in 60 instead of 15 days” (a lie), “we will update you soon” (a lie), “we dispute we owe you money” (a lie, they gave us a credit note already), and so on.
- On January 31st, DigitalRiver GmbH will “unexpectedly” learn that the mother company did not refinance the 100 Mio USD. So they’ll use their 50 Mio Eur stolen from software companies to pay half of that debt. Directly afterwards, they will declare bankruptcy.
As a result, DigitalRiver GmbH and MyCommerce will be gone, and DigitalRiver Inc thus Barry and/or Siris will be richer by ~ 50 Mio. (borrowed 100 Mio, have to pay back only the left 50 Mio of it).

While its obvious that it should be illegal to steal 50 Mio this way, unfortunately the construction they chose will make it hard to make them liable for it. Even more, as they would surely spend millions to defend their loot, and their adversaries are only ill-defended small companies (hundreds of them).

Who would rob a bank, gain a 1 Mio but then go to Jail, if you could rob MyCommerce customers, gain 50 Mio and enjoy your life?

[ibexpert]

What someone posted early in the other thread seems to have become true.
...

....
Who would rob a bank, gain a 1 Mio but then go to Jail, if you could rob MyCommerce customers, gain 50 Mio and enjoy your life?

but if you rob a bank, you have only one victim of your crime (the bank) that will definitely use the regular procedures approved by the state to sue you.

if you rob thousands of owners of small software companies who have nothing left to lose because some of them have already lost everything, and there is no regular procedure for them to sue you, among all of these in a country like the US there could be someone who has already prepared some bullets with "KYC". just a fictional point of view, but could also become true...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Mangione

[sft234]

Digital River GmbH
Wiesenhuettenstrasse 11
60329 Frankfurt am Main
Tel.: +49 221 99535513 (Mo-Fr 10 - 16:30 Uhr)
info@digitalriver.com

USt-IdNr: DE194149069
Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Köln HRB 56188
https://www.ag-koeln.nrw.de/

[sft234]

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1wfx27Om

Ten years ago, Digital River was acquired by the private equity firm Siris Capital for $840 million. At least half of that amount was financed through debt, a very large bank loan. The plan was straightforward: cut costs and eventually flip the company to a larger buyer—like Microsoft. That plan, however, never came to fruition.

For the past decade, Digital River has been paying an interest-only loan to the banks, amounting to $30-50 million annually, significantly reducing profits. Meanwhile, Siris has sold off parts of the business, making hundreds of millions in the process.

Tomorrow, the company will lay off nearly all of its employees, leaving just 20 behind to handle the dismantling process. Those 20 will be the only one to get severance. The entirety of everyone's severance. Over 200 people will lose their jobs with no severance pay, and clients still owed money will remain unpaid.

They’ll claim there’s no money left, but the truth is, the money is there—they’re simply choosing where it goes.

[theProsecutor]

Let’s make sure these individuals are held accountable.

We need to make a clear distinction between civil liability and criminal liability.

Civil liability is confined to the company, and recovering anything from a company that has gone bankrupt and emptied its accounts is very unlikely. This is what they’re relying on. However, if this was done intentionally, we can look into criminal liability, but that will need to be proven.

We need to approach this from a different perspective.

We had a contract. But what they’ve been selling since July was not part of that contract. They lied to us and took our products and sold them without our consent, outside the contract. This is software piracy, theft, or another similar legal term. The prosecutors will determine the exact charges.

Imagine you have a contract with someone to sell 10 licenses or physical products you created. They sell those 10 products and pay for them. But at the same time, they steal another 10 products from you, sell them under their own name, and keep all the money without paying you anything. They didn’t break the contract, they committed theft.

When it comes to providing software services, out of respect for those who want to use our products and to protect our reputation, we should continue offering the service. This also is what these individuals are relying on. But we have the right to stop providing that service at any time. The buyers didn’t purchase from us, they bought from a thief who stole our products. These individuals need to either refund the buyers or pay for the stolen products. And, of course, they must face criminal consequences for their actions.

That’s why, when we report this to the police, we need to shift the focus of the complaint. This will ensure personal responsibility for their actions.

The perpetrator will be the manager/owner of the company and the country where the criminal act was committed will be Germany.

This way, the complaint will no longer be rejected due to the lack of identification of a perpetrator, as we saw in a previous post, or due to jurisdiction.



Let’s file those reports and make sure these individuals face the legal consequences of their actions.



PS Please post again the details where the complaints can be filed so that more people can file or file again a complaint.

[sft234]

This site states that countless web-shops (more than one thousand!) still used DigitalRiver/MyCommerce to this day and now got the sudden blackout by surprise:

https://trends.builtwith.com/websitelist/MyCommerce

I checked out some of them. They think it's a temporary technical issue.
They'll awake soon within a daytime nightmare...

[quikquak]

Nice list. Some appear to have changed checkouts. But many appear to be carrying on as if nothing happened to their shop. Bizarre.
(A few I’ve check now that appear to have switched to Fastspring/Clever bridge)

[ChrisG_33_JB]

please remove this post - I am unable to

[ChrisG_33_JB]

Answer in a german forum from DR:
https://www.heise.de/forum/heise-online ... 53240/show

Dear Valued Customer,

As you may know, we have been navigating a challenging period in our business for some time now. While we’ve worked diligently to consolidate our operations and strengthen our focus on our Digital and Subscription businesses, unforeseen factors have intensified the strain on our financial resources. The rapid contraction of key customers, combined with the headwinds presented by new deals with shorter payment terms and U.S. trade policies that impacted one of our largest customers, have exacerbated the pressure on our available capital. These challenges, coupled with rising operational costs, have affected our ability to sustain operations.

As the crisis has intensified very recently, Digital River GmbH and Digital River Holding GmbH were unfortunately obliged to file for insolvency today. Moreover, we also suspended services to our customers for the time being. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Best regards,
Your MyCommerce team

[quikquak]

“…rapid contraction of key customers“ - I wonder why? Don’t tell me they’re surprised.

[sft234]

Answer in a german forum from DR:
https://www.heise.de/forum/heise-online ... 53240/show

Dear Valued Customer,

As you may know, we have been navigating a challenging period in our business for some time now. While we’ve worked diligently to consolidate our operations and strengthen our focus on our Digital and Subscription businesses, unforeseen factors have intensified the strain on our financial resources. The rapid contraction of key customers, combined with the headwinds presented by new deals with shorter payment terms and U.S. trade policies that impacted one of our largest customers, have exacerbated the pressure on our available capital. These challenges, coupled with rising operational costs, have affected our ability to sustain operations.

As the crisis has intensified very recently, Digital River GmbH and Digital River Holding GmbH were unfortunately obliged to file for insolvency today. Moreover, we also suspended services to our customers for the time being. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Best regards,
Your MyCommerce team

We just received this by email too

Digital River is done - over

[sft234]

Here's a declaration issued by CEO Barry Kasoff to the employees of Digital River:

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1jjm7pm01

Dear Team,

As you know, we have been navigating a challenging period in our business for some time now. While we’ve worked diligently to consolidate our operations and strengthen our focus on our Digital and Subscription businesses, unforeseen factors have intensified the strain on our financial resources. The rapid contraction of key customers, combined with the headwinds presented by new deals with shorter payment terms and U.S. trade policies that impacted one of our largest customers, have exacerbated the pressure on our available capital. These challenges, coupled with rising operational costs and tax obligations, have impacted our ability to sustain operations.

In response to our constrained financial position, we began exploring strategic pathways. As of January 2, 2025, Digital River became unable to tap into advanced funding of our revolving credit facility. In response, we engaged in discussions with our lenders and largest customers to source additional funding or determine an alternate solution to sustain our operations.

Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to identify a path forward that would allow Digital River to continue operating. It is with a heavy heart that we have made the incredibly difficult decision to initiate the wind down of the business, which will occur pursuant to each foreign jurisdiction’s requirements. This process began with the suspension of services to the majority of our global customers. As part of the global wind down process, today, Digital River filed an application to initiate insolvency proceedings for our German entities at the Cologne Insolvency Court. As such, a Court-appointed Preliminary Insolvency Administrator will assess the operational viability of German operations.

Globally, we expect a substantial reduction in our workforce as part of the wind down process, which will also impact our independent contractors. While some employees may remain to assist with the transition, no specific decisions have been made at this time. You will receive further information regarding the wind down process specific to your individual jurisdiction in the coming days, including details about your employment status and any other region-specific considerations. Please be assured that we do not anticipate any interruptions to current wages or benefits during this time.

Please note that we have already communicated with our customers to inform them of the wind down process. We are in ongoing conversations with certain customers to facilitate a smooth transition, which may drive variability in the duration of the wind down process for certain of our teams. We ask that you continue to escalate all inquiries from customers to your ELT lead, and refrain from commenting on the wind down or insolvency processes.

We know this news may be difficult to process. Please know that this decision was not made lightly, and it in no way reflects the immense dedication, talent, and effort each of you has contributed to Digital River. You have been the driving force behind everything we’ve achieved, and for that, we are deeply grateful.

In the days ahead, we ask for your continued professionalism and focus as we navigate this transition. We will be holding a global town hall meeting later today to provide further information and address your questions. In the meantime, if you have immediate concerns or questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your ELT lead directly.

Thank you for everything you have done for Digital River.

Sincerely,

Barry Kasoff