Rallying Vendors Affected by Digital River Payment Issues for a Class Action Lawsuit

[Richard_Synapse]

This is why we'll wait for the official bodies to do their work, it is their duty to check everything.

Richard

[quikquak]

But nothing to worry, the big guys are affected too... Autodesk for example.
And they will not let it go like this.

we don't know if they are affected as well, or if they tried to steal money from "smaller" merchants only. This was all planned very well on their end. They know that bigger companies have much more resources to sue them than the smaller companies.

The pay-out did appear to be a bit random though. Some smaller companies were paid. We can really only guess why.
I thought the intention was to move our contracts to the states. But Old Steam-Roller-Kasoff had a better idea it seems. Trained as a insolvency expert, thinks like one.

[pekbro]

Seems like everything was specifically calculated to counter any possible arguments that might come up. German courts are likely the best shot to argue any personal liability, in the US it would likely be a washout.

Personally, I wouldn't bet any money on it unfortunately. It's super difficult to prove criminal intent, even if it's super obvious, since of course they've taken all that into consideration as well...

Consider that they've had access to however many millions worth of unscrupulous legal advice for a long time now, vs your infinitesimally small in comparison resources. It's sad, but that is likely the truth of it. That doesn't mean it's not worth a fight, just don't kill yourselves trying to seek justice, remember you can't get your expenses back if you don't win...

*btw I'm no lawyer, but it was my job for a time to help build defenses against legal case brought
against my large corporate employer at the time. I was often successful actually. TBH it was only
procedurally similar, not situationally. Situationally, my employer was actually at fault most of the
time, tho they lost very seldomly tbh.


*If you can somehow get autodesk involved, do that definitely...

[buttermilk]

Of course they are:

• Their store is down, you can't buy online.

• They were forced to offer free extensions to customers who can't renew licenses.

I'm pretty sure it's not a comfortable situation for them, and since the transition to a new e-commerce platform is not smooth, I assume it was neither foreseen nor properly planned.

But nothing to worry, the big guys are affected too... Autodesk for example.
And they will not let it go like this.

we don't know if they are affected as well, or if they tried to steal money from "smaller" merchants only. This was all planned very well on their end. They know that bigger companies have much more resources to sue them than the smaller companies.

[csjanos]

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Our company has suffered damages of nearly 400,000 EUR due to unpaid amounts.

We have hired a German lawyer to represent us. We have been informed that we need to wait a bit until it is officially visible on the Insolvency Announcements Portal (https://neu.insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de/ap (https://neu.insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de/ap) (https://neu.insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de/ap (https://neu.insolvenzbekanntmachungen.de/ap))).
After that, we will be able to take further steps.

Presumably, a temporary insolvency administrator will be appointed, who will assess the remaining assets, such as cash, real estate, and insurance. Following this assessment, creditors (including us) will be notified to submit our claims.
There will be a time window for submitting these claims.

Afterward, each claim will be examined individually for its legal basis and amount. If the claim is undisputed and there are remaining funds in the company, creditors will eventually receive their payments.

The insolvency administrator will be independent of Digital River and will most likely be a German lawyer who must report strictly to the German court.

If you’d like, I can share their contact details, as it might be more efficient for everyone’s case to be handled centrally by one person.

[virtualdj]

yes please share the details of the lawfirm who already started looking into this, will be more efficient indeed if we all use the same.

[buttermilk]

Ok, 400k it's a lot of money, ya
How come you didn't react faster
How much did they charge you for the support?

[vvk]

Digital River owes us 120K EUR.

[buttermilk]

Okay, soon I will make a new app in the sound processing domain, looks profitable

[csjanos]

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yes please share the details of the lawfirm who already started looking into this, will be more efficient indeed if we all use the same.

Unfortunately, what we feared has happened—there is no turning back now. There is no point in waiting any longer, as it is clear that they have no intention of settling the matter, and we need to act as soon as possible.

Maybe I’m seeing it wrong, but to me, this looks like a serious fraud.
It probably didn’t start as fraud, but when they saw there was no way out of a financial crisis, they likely took whatever they could from the company instead of resolving the issue.

I believe that we need to take joint action, as it has much more impact than if every affected party hires separate lawyers and spends a fortune on individual cases.

I am sharing the contact details of the law firm we have hired. Anyone interested should reach out to them so we can take collective action, as we are talking about a significant amount of money.

Everyone has worked hard for their money, and this is outright theft, they are essentially trying to disappear with our funds.

Law Firm Contact Details:
Name: Luca Becker-Kovács LL.M.
Email: anwalt@lbk-law.de (mailto:anwalt@lbk-law.de)

Physical Address:
Rechtsanwältin
Louisenstraße 59

[csjanos]

Ok, 400k it's a lot of money, ya
How come you didn't react faster
How much did they charge you for the support?

Our company has a relatively high turnover. They didn’t transfer the December payment, and an August transfer was also missing. While the amount may seem large, it actually only accounts for two months.

Support has not responded, we have exchanged emails, but it is now clear that they will not reply.

Everyone should review and calculate their previous transactions as well. When we cross-checked our sales and the payments received from Digital River, we discovered that they had been underpaying us every single month and this is clearly verifiable.

[virtualdj]

Ok, 400k it's a lot of money, ya
How come you didn't react faster

when your sales are mostly recurring subscriptions, you can quickly start to send new customers to a new MoR, but you need a very strong reason before you cancel existing subscriptions and ask all the customers to manually resubscribe through your new MoR.

[buttermilk]

My losses are about 1M EUR, ya
And they charged me just 1k for support,
Strange they charged you nothing

[johnnyd2]

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DR owes us about 300k.
We have been with them for 15 years, it was very calculated of them to use our trust to increase the debt. We have a law firm in the US that represents us.
If you also want to pursue Digital River, Inc or Digital River GmbH in the US, you can contact them at
femida.us
dd@femida.us (mailto:dd@femida.us)
+1-703-739-9111
66 Canal Center Plaza, STE 505 Alexandria, VA 22314

[alexcmn1]

I wonder if we small guys with 40k of losses can afford the lawyer, but I.m going to send email and ask.
Thank you for support!