The new owner has plans to completely shut down operations in November, and the head of HR is lying to employees about the future of company. No severances will be available, and going bankrupt enables the owner to walk away with the money and not pay vendors OR the retention bonuses that were given to select employees.
The River is DRY.
To the person(s) defending DR: Please come back Feb 1st 2025. We can chat then.
You were right. I'm asking myself: how could you know? Is this a proof for planned bankruptsy (which is a crime)? Are you a board member?
It can not get more done then this. Below is what DR sent me.
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
Advocates mix truth with lies. While observable DR conditions may be true, there is no denying the fact that most sellers still don't receive their money. Refusal of payment is generally a serious sign of bankruptcy.
I wasn't defending DR - we left DR two months ago aready because it's not a reliable partner anymore and I'd recommend anyone else to do the same. I just said the original poster's statement "The new owner has plans to completely shut down operations in November" turned out not to be true since we now have mid of DECEMBER and DR hasn't shut down operations. That's a FACT. So this was invented fake news and not authentic internal whistleblower info. The platform still is fully operational, they paid merchants (not all though, and much too late) and you can't find any info anywhere about bankruptsy. Such fake infos are dangerous. But I don't defend them AT ALL. It has become a horrible company under the new leadership.
To the person(s) defending DR: Please come back Feb 1st 2025. We can chat then.
Most publishers still don't get paid. DR pays to a few 'lucky' ones thus payments sporadically reported, however, that's smokescreen.
So we have December 12th now and no shutdown. They even paid most merchants now. So this thread's original post was completely missleading fake news. Maybe posted by DR's concurrency?
Don't get me wrong: I hate them for their behaviour and lack of communication, but that they plan to shut down operations in November simply turned out to be invented and very much missleading. This if PROVEN now.
has anyone reach out to the AG of Minnesota to look into Kasoff's dealings? I think it is at least worth a look by the AG - potentially there is fraud, violation of labor laws, wage theft, etc.
https://www.ag.state.mn.us/Office/Complaint.asp
From some angry DR clients based in Europe
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=612462&start=1365
Mon Dec 09, 2024 2:32 pm
But all this does not change the fact that we will never see our money again!
Post Mon Dec 09, 2024 2:46 pm
Na, they won't get away with this - we'll take them to court
Some also received the July and August period payment at the beginning of November, but now it seems to be completely over. Nobody has received any money anymore sice, no matter what KYC status, and not even the October sales period statement. Agreements all broken by Digital River. The game is over. The a--holes try to hide behind US courts and claim you have to go there to file a court case - but a German GmbH is liable under German right, not US right. So be prepared to have hundreds of court cases soon in Cologne or Frankfurt.
I am a small vendor and have received my last Payment in June
When you click on the picture of Barry Kasoff on this site you get: "Barry Kasoff is the CEO and owner of Digital River"
https://www.digitalriver.com/about-us/
from:
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=612462&start=1320
Wed Dec 04, 2024 3:22 pm
IaES wrote: ↑Wed Dec 04, 2024 12:30 pm
On 'Companies House' (The UK register of companies) it shows that since Nov 27. 2024 that guy Kassoff is No longer a "Person with significant control" (I assume he controls some other entity that, in a round about way does have control but this change does show that somebody is still managing things in DR and ensuring the register is kept up to date with whatever it is they're planning)
DIGITAL RIVER UK LIMITED
Seems that Barry has done the job that he was brought to do. TMF Group was assisting during this period. Someone (thelayoffs) mentioned end of November as important date so above seems to confirm that.
"The new owner has plans to completely shut down operations in November"
Should be today, then November business days are over.
This "whistleblower" info obviously was utter bullsh-t
I am not a lawyer, but this company reported to the police regarding Digital River GmbH, which I believe is the German branch of DR, and just because of the updated agreement then the jurisdiction belong to the United States? Interesting
Well - you might not like this, but here's the proof: Email from Digital River today: "We have changed the governing law and jurisdiction related to the Agreement.
Moving forward, this Agreement will be governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota in the USA, without reference to conflict of law principles. Additionally, any proceedings related to the Agreement will exclusively be held in the State of Minnesota, specifically in Hennepin County. Moving forward, it ensures clarity and consistency in our legal framework."
German police doesn't sue US-companies since Germany is a US-vassal, so forget it
A European company notified the police
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=614929&start=255
"I've reported Digital River GmbH from Cologne, Germany of embezzling of money (Unterschlagung § 246 StGb), to the NRW police.
You'll find the link to the report page and other details in the following thread:
viewtopic.php?p=9003324#p9003324"
The reality is the owner knows this time of year will be higher in use, so he’ll keep the money then close. Christmas only comes once a year after all.
I'm not sure what happened, but according to this forum, some angry companies haven't gotten paid, and one is encouraging the same company that hasn't gotten paid to file a complaint with the police.
https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=614929&start=255
"The new owner has plans to completely shut down operations in November" -
Well, I can't see anything related to this clame. DR paid the July and August period and the platform still is fully operational, So this claim obviously is fake news. Still 10 days left to become true though...
Well, they didn't pay us for July and August, even though we completed the requested KYC, which was confirmed from their side.
Strange - today they paid the August period income to several merchants (based on the new 60-days-period master services contract with "just" 11 days of delay) . So no bankruptcy nevertheless? If they had no money they couldn't pay. No money no pay. Are there any employees (real ones please!) who can give any infos on what's going on in the company right now?
The unexpected July period payment gave false hope. Although they promised the August period payment will be paid until end of October nothing has been paid so far - and we now have the 5th of November. They cheat and lia all the time. I think there's no use for any further hope. DR is done. Even more since almost everyone has switched to the concurrency now and many merchants refunded all orders since July to afain take away the stolen money from DR. This all will result in many many millions of missing income and additional loss into an already financially desolate situation. Maybe that's part of the plan of CEO and owner Barry Kasoff. To accelerate bankruptsy. Since he doesn't seem to care at all that everyone is leaving and that the reputation of Digital River has reached the zero point. No CEO who wants to save a business would drive out those from whom the income comes.
NO CUSTOMER support, NO Sales team, NO Partner Managers… they’re done. Digital River is closed. Vendors leaving FAST.
If you need any information from control panel, you can check whether API access still works. You can use Postman to create HTTP requests.
So, it seem the DR shutdown goes into the next level:
All vendors are no longer able to login into the control panel, where they can access all their infos, contracts, products purchases, and where they could refund purchases.
If anyone knows an alternative way to login to the control panel, please post it here. Thanks.
Where did you get this nonsense about bankruptcy?
It’s hilarious! Just google for Digital River in October— the web is packed with thousands of honest vendors complaining about DR’s fraud, withholding payments from July through October.
Considering the reduction in expenses, the company is more stable than ever and is onboarding new major players in the market.
You’ve made my day!
Trust is everything for a payment processor. What major company would choose to partner with Digital River now, given how widely it's linked with fraud across the web?
We still haven’t received payments for July, August, or September. The way they’ve handled this situation, particularly the lack of communication, is completely unacceptable. After being a customer for over 20 years, we would never consider returning to their service.
Some companies got paid for July, not me though. No emails, no notification either.
Many companies now have been paid for july.
But not for august, nor september.
Why do they pay now? Without any clear commuication.
Does DR try to stop the vendors from refunding orders, which several (many?) vendors have done/started?
Many companies now have been paid for july.
But not for august, not september.
Why do they pay now? Without any clear commuication.
Does DR try to stop the vendors from refunding orders, which several (many?) verdoes have done/started?
We just got a payment of over 100K for July. When we reached out to customer support about the August payment, they got back to us in less than 40 minutes. They promised it would be credited within 5-7 days. It looks like the company is finally keeping its promises, but their poor communication could really hurt them. We told them we'd bring most of our orders back to Digital River if the August payment comes through on time. Let's see how it goes...
We're not entirely happy with the new solution we switched to. There have been many declined payments from users for reasons we don't understand, and user payments aren't going through. Digital River was unbeatable in this regard, as their order processing rate was very high in our case.
Well, then communication could be much better as I can imagine tons of vendors leaving platform after triggering refunds and losing trust. I, personally, can hardly believe that there will be no big impact due to how it all went but let me summarize:
DR then started to see exodus of vendors and tons of refunds which was painful and, like said, I cannot imagine that this will not leave huge mark on DR future.
Where did you get this nonsense about bankruptcy? The management has secured additional funds and won several major lawsuits (such as the cases with Ericsson and AsusTek). The blocked funds from Kaspersky are also already unblocked. To attract financing, the legal department spent more than a month on KYC for old accounts, of which there are thousands. This caused delays in payments.
Considering the reduction in expenses, the company is more stable than ever and is onboarding new major players in the market.
I'm not a finance expert, but wondering
Paid some customers the amounts owed from July = DR won’t declare bankruptcy in November?
How do you account for the fact that they have now paid at least _some_ of their customers for their July sales (which should have been paid 15th Aug but have now been paid 29th Oct)?
Ask the SVP of People about the future of the company. Ask why they have someone in recruitment but NO roles will be open at all. Ask why she’s altered employee surveys for years.
Sooooo, the eCompass tool didn’t work out?!?
End of November?
What would happen to all the employees?