Ah, I should explain something - LLC ...
In english-spoken countries this is often called Ltd., in Germany it is mbH (which literally translates to the very same: with limited liability) and it all means the same (the differences are mostly tax related): nobody is personally responsible for whatever mischief that company creates.
That means, if they manage to damage your goods, or your life, they won't care much, nobody is personally to be held responsible on their side, and you will probably get nothing. They will simply dissolve the company, pay their debts as far as it gets (which is usually not far). create a new one in the same fashion and start over again.
B2B merchants know this, and they will not allow such a shop a long payment target, because chances are they won't get their money. And I know this, because I've learned international trade - we did import the first personal computers from ROC back in the 80s.
Consumers usually don't know it, and they don't need to, because usually you buy something in exchange for your money, and then the deal is done, and there is no issue with what happens to the company later on.
But nowadays things are different, when shops are collecting data, and are oblidged to keep records of that data, or even offer such record-keeping aaS. If there is no more money, and the company dissolves, then such obligation transfers to the liquidator - who may or may not know about it. In the lucky case things at least get properly destroyed. In the not-so-lucky case, with people there and nobody caring any longer, anything can happen.
PMc, LLC is Limited Liability Corportation. I don't know the ins and outs, but for example, when my wife started her business, a studio for an exercise called Gyrotonic, her accountant advised her to do it that way.
Absolutely, I would advise the same. For the shop operator this is the safe thing to do, with the only major downsides being that you have more difficulty getting a loan, and stricter book-keeping requirements (depending on national regulations).
I don't think it's malicious on, say MasterCard's part, or most major companies, but it seems that almost everything gets cracked eventually.
It was not, I know the MasterCard story. The funny thing is, it is quite coherent to what we have here.
MasterCard wanted a so-called "loyalty program", and they didn't want to do it themselves, so they hired some internet webdesigner or whatever rat-shop (I forgot the name and don't care) to do it. And these guys simply blew it up.
Here now we have the foundation, usually trustworthy, and they hired some LLC Rebel Idealist (what a name :/) to do their donation collecting business for them.
Now you can use google or such, and find out what kind of shop that is. The first hits already give an interesting impression.
cheers.
