from Hacker News

Digital River runs dry, hasn't paid developers for sales since July

by newaccount74 on 10/16/24, 7:03 AM with 21 comments

  • by AlexandrB on 10/16/24, 2:07 PM

    Some crazy details in here:

    > In a post to LinkedIn three weeks ago, Lorant Barla, CEO of Romania-based Softland, said, "Digital River is automatically 'pre-signing' contracts in your MyCommerce account without your approval. The new MSAs [Master Services Agreements] stipulate additional platform fees and payments delayed for up to 60 days (we are still waiting for the payment from July)."

    And:

    > One of the vendors who has been asking to be paid showed The Register a note received from Digital River's law firm, New York-based Mintz & Gold, in response to payment inquiries.

    > The law firm says that Digital River presently doesn't consider merchant debt claims to be valid obligations.

    Seems like a total meltdown. Hopefully merchants get to recoup at least some of their losses from this fiasco.

  • by blackeyeblitzar on 10/16/24, 2:14 PM

    Reading about this situation here and elsewhere, I have to wonder how much of this is even legal. Pre signing contracts? Refusing to accept terminations? Not making payments but taking in money? Do they not care because they’ll get to dismiss all these in a bankruptcy proceeding?

    It also seems like these shutdown CEOs may be running the company in a deceptive way towards a shutdown. Is that really legal? Can’t they face criminal charges for that, and wouldn’t that remain even with a bankruptcy case?

  • by srmarm on 10/16/24, 3:02 PM

    That's a name I hear from time to time but have never quite understood what their purpose was.

    My last laptop purchased from the the Lenovo store and my subscription to Nvidia GeforceNow were processed via Digital River.

    You'd think both Lenovo and Nvidia would be big enough to manage their own ecommerce. I suspect their legal teams will see them get better treatment anyway.

  • by fenesiistvan on 10/17/24, 8:01 AM

    I am also affected. Can somebody suggest a good alternative?

  • by hermitcrab on 10/16/24, 7:49 PM

    This is not the first evil thing they have done. I've always thought Digital River were scum. They bought up and wrecked lots of nice little payment processor companies. Everything they touch turns to shit.

  • by pixelpoet on 10/16/24, 6:43 PM

    Yet another case of companies getting away with stuff that would have landed you or I in jail on day one.

    Sure must be nice to get away with anything you like just because it's legally a company and not a person doing it, with all kinds of shady lawyers exploiting legalese loopholes. All of them will escape with full pockets and without punishment, and the moral of the story is: don't be poor, be a company and have lots of lawyers - the world is your oyster.

  • by rekabis on 10/18/24, 7:42 AM

    Vampire/vulture capitalism strikes again! Looks like stakeholders have managed to bleed the company - and both customers and clients - dry. My bet is that they are now preparing to break it up and sell it off.