- Report: #1334558
Complaint Review: Cosmo Distribution - London Other
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Cosmo Distribution
302 High Holborn, London WC1V, United Kingdom London, WC1V Other, USA
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http://www.cosmodistribution.com
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Cosmo Distribution Question them on a outpayment and they lock your account, never get paid again! London United Kingdom
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Cosmo distribution was a ok company up until about 6 weeks ago. About 6 weeks ago...a artist could request a outpayment for royalties we earned from this distributor and ask to receive our monies owed to us from sales we made. Weeks would passs with no response! I have made multiple requests as well as tens of emails to their support staff asking whats going on with never a response. Before this, one would request a outpayment, and with in a week the funds would be transfered to our paypal accounts or bank accounts if you had one.
I chose paypal as I do all my finances via debit/credit card. Today, I recieved a email back from the distributor Cosmo distribution. Here is how it reads:
Hello,
I appologise for an late response. We were moving business to the new company and there were some issues in the process.
I have checked on you and yes there is positive balance on your account with us which should be transfered to you. We would want to transfer this funds asap therefore send over your bank account details since at this moment payouts bia Paypal are not possible. Send your full name, address, tax ID (social scurity number) and your bank account details (bank account no., bank name, bank address, SWIFT or BIC code, country).
Also provide us with the scan of your ID to confirm your identity.
As soon as you provide us with the fallowing details, we will process your outpayment.
Kind regards,
Sasha | Customer support | [email protected]m
Now, Thinking on this...I am a american located in the good ole U.S.A and this person is asking for all the prudent info that one would neet to steal my identity, so naturally I question it..in the response below:
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I am a little weary of this as you now have all the info needed to steal ones identity. since when is paypal not available? since this is from overseas, i am very weary of giving you my full iditentity information. This I think would be foolish, as it would allow anyone to steal my identity. This seems very suspicious...Why can cosmo not mail a check out to its customers like a regular distributor/label does? I just cant provide you with all of my identifying information being from a foreign country, with out some re-assurance that it is legit and secure. So, I need a way to rectify this, as cosmo owes me money..for which it has also collected and has also taken its royalties on for weeks on end. I will not provide my Soc sec number to a company not based in the USA which is where I reside in with out some sort of assurance, as this has never been requested before. I will be glad to provide the info you request once you can assure me it will be secure as this seems strange to me....coming from a distributor whom has my SSI number on file in its system as this was required upon signup, and is only missing my banking info.
The response I received is as follows:
Sasha (Cosmo Distribution)
Oct 22, 17:34 BST
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3 Updates & Rebuttals
Month's of Cosmo dist Issues
#2Author of original report
Mon, October 24, 2016
first off, I am glad I filed this here as I am finding out there are more issues than just with me! I am sorry you as well are having them. Sadly, I do believe Cosmo will do this to whom ever they feel they can rip off. Their latest email to me was this:
Sasha (Cosmo Distribution)
Oct 23, 16:18 BST
Hello,
Your account will be unblocked when you will comply with our rules which are cleary stated on the web page. We o not write laws but we do must do business accoarding to laws and rules and obviously you do not want to understand this. It is not you who write the rules.
Also your music has been entirely removed from our catalog since it is not compatible with the catalog we want to offer to the end users, qulatiy of the productions does not meet the standards.
Your account will remain blocked until you provide us with needed which was already requested from you in previous emails. Once you comply with the requests the positive balance will be transferd to you BANK ACCOUNT.
The stores will remove your music in the fallowing days. Some channels are doing this in few days and with others can take even 2 months. All the sales generated will be transfered to you once you provide what we were asking from you.
Everything about removal process is explained in the FAQ.
Kind regards,
Sasha | Customer support |
***End of email***
So, I went to Cosmo's page and searched the site for hours on end, and I invite anyone to do the same @ http://www.cosmodistribution.com
No where on the page can I find where it ask's for the following info that Sasha asked for:
You are obligated to provide us your full name, address, tax ID (social scurity number) and your bank account details (bank account no., bank name, bank address, SWIFT or BIC code, country).
I have been through the FAQ as well as Term's and conditions and can not find those requirements anywhere.
so naturally I am going to question it, as I previously showed in my report...and we all seen what happened when I did!
Now, yes I can start litigation...but let's think about that...Company is based in London UK I am based in the U.S.A how am I going to find a International attorney licensed in U.K to practice law there. Been trying,,,unless I go to the U.K and hire a attorney there...I am finding it's impossible. I think cosmo knows that! A attorney for this case will cost thousands and I am sure it will not be a simple fix. So where does one turn?
I will give a little advice I was led onto today. The U.S Attorney General's office will help! So those of you located in the USA can turn to them, they can guide you in what to do..since you legally own the copyrights to your sound recordings!
Also filing a copyright violation against Cosmo is a must..this is what you will be guided to do. since they are collecting $$ on your copyrighted and owned recordings/productions they must pay you for use of that recording(s).
So, I have contacted the U.S copyright office. Here is a link as well as contact info:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl105.html
U.S. Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue SE
Washington, DC 20559-6000
(202) 707-3000
Because, if WE let them get away with this, how many of their ( msuical clients not end users ) will lose $$ that they will pocket, and for how long?
Joel
Seattle,Washington,
USA
Same treatment
#3Consumer Comment
Mon, October 24, 2016
I am currently going through this same situation and feel your pain. At first we were asked to provide a paypal and after finally being able to get a hold of someone "Sasha" after almost 6 months, I have to go through all these hoops and put in my bank account info and provide another invoice after I have sent them 2 already as a pdf. Usually most companies would be willing to mail a check if electronic payments could not work out. I don't want all my hard work throughout this year to not get paid. You can't use people's work to make money for your company and not pay them what they deserve or at least direct them in a way to get payments confidently and safely without risk of their bank accounts. I'm sure my account will get locked soon too out of retaliation. We'll just wait and see. Here's my last email from them a few minutes ago: Hi Joel, We do understand your frustration since there really were some issues in the sales outpayment process. The reason for this was that some stores didnI't payout us on time which reflected on the qouality of the service. Now this is fixed and we are back on track again. The outpayments via Paypal are not available at the moment and we want to payout your sales to your bank accout due to the security reasons. We are kindly asking you to provide us with the bank account where we can simply transfer the funds (Bank name, bank account, bank SWIF (BIC code) and bank account holder's name). We are constantly transfering the sales to the bank accounts and since we have payout over 1 million in sales to our users this shoudnI't be an issue. Since you are an business, you will also need to invoice us. The invoice should include your bussineses name, address, tax ID, reg. number. Please invice us "for music sold" for total of ****€ using our details bellow: DANDELIONA LIMITED 22, Makarios III Avenue, MAKARIA CENTER, 4th Floor, office 403 6016 Larnaca - Cyprus Registration nr: 354415 VAT ID: CY10354415E Please cooperate and provide us with the requested and we will transfer your sales right away. Kind regards, Sasha | Customer support | [email protected]
MAd Artist
clermont,Georgia,
USA
Same Problem
#4Consumer Comment
Sun, October 23, 2016
I also am having the same issue , but i am not recieving any response at all. I have requested an outpayment in JULY and still have not gotten any word back from them. I have contacted the mother company Musicxip and they told me they send out payments monthly to Cosmo Distribution so i am unclear as to why they are not sending payments. They will not even reply to support emails.
You are obligated to provide us your tax information and your identity. We are obligated to provide this detail to the tax offices to comply with the EU laws. Since you are not willing to cooperate on this, your account will be blocked and remained blocked as far as we are resolving this. We have no interest in your royalties since you are in reality one of those clients who are making us zero income, so in your case we are basically working for free. Your account will be blocked in 24 hours.
Kind regards,
Sasha | Customer support | [email protected]m
Checking at 3:00 PM CST I can no longer access my account @ cosmodistribution.com
however, no mention of the company taking down my music that I have copyrighted that it will continue to collect royalties on and take its 20% share of no matter how little it is, I can assure you it is not zero. It may only be $0.26 to $1.27- per transaction but there are as many as 200 transactions a month that they are collecting that $0.26 - 1.27 on plus keeping all the sales $$ that is owed to me.. the other 80% So we are not talking a couple of dollars here, we are talking in the hundreds of dollars in the last 6 weeks that have been taken in on sales and that 20% royalty they took out and still with held that 80% owed to me.