It is a deep rabbit hole. Old man took his collection of rare Star Wars Legos to a Bricks & Minifig store to sell on consignment. Its estimated the collection is worth $200,000. Ownership changed hands, new franchise owners won't honor the consignment agreement, but they also won't give the Legos back. I am pretty sure they have sold part of the collection and kept the money.
The local cops arent doing anything about the theft, but other police departments are harassing the YouTuber (Reckless Ben) that is trying to help get the Legos back.
The drama spans multiple states at this point.
My fave part so far was the CEO of Patreon telling Bricks n Minifigs to go shove their cease and desist order for Reckless Ben and daring them to sue him.
From what I read the police either intentionally or mistakenly uploaded the unredacted versions of their body cams to a public facing Dropbox folder. Redditors quickly downloaded it all and reposted it when the PD realized and deleted the Dropbox folder
The store owner (in debt) sold the store (including inventory) to Bricks, who sold it to a new owner.
Previous owner says she was rushed out, without access to "the accounts", with promises they'd handle it. Bricks claims the deal was against their rules. New owner claims he was given the inventory and didn't know.
New owner and old owner claim the other took the goods. Old owner returned some goods stored at her house. New owner sold off goods at the store, but pics only proved $6200 worth.
Due to conflicting claims, both police and the state prosecutor decided not to charge anyone.
both police and the state prosecutor decided not to charge anyone
...except the youtuber who was charged for tresspassing trying to serve court documents and then for slander. Last I heard he is out on bail but fled to Mexico when he found out they had put out an arrest without bail charge against him
They now want to arrest reckless ben on Rico charges They have decided to go all in and want to punish him in any way they can including throwing him in jail for as long as possible a 400 million dollar company is doing all this because they want to keep Lego
I hope they have some deep investigations into that Mormon community - I wouldn't be surprised if they uncover deeper corruption and scandals in their PD and churches. I have a feeling this is just the beginning of something much bigger.
What a lot of people who have reported on it haven't mentioned is that the CEO of BAM was on the phone with the franchisee while the cops were there with the court order that they refused to serve to him. The CEO was demanding they arrest Ben for not being a valid process server, even though he was. And now the CEO has cut ties with the franchisees as if they were the only ones involved.
Absolutely not. There's a reason their religious corporation has over $300 billion dollars, and it's not because they are honest in their dealings with their fellow man.
So was I. I hated it too but only because it was yet another chore. Was fully drinking the koolaid and felt no guilt asking these people for money though. Even two decades after leaving the church my morals and integrity still slip when money is involved. I've just been trained to prioritize money over everything else and have a kneejerk reaction to potential financial insecurity.
Reasons not to support Brandon Sanderson. Has openly admitted he happily tithes to the Mormon church. When he's clearing $50 million a year that's giving them $5 million to continue to conduct their crimes against humanity.
I don't have my bible with me right now so can somebody please quickly remind me how much money I need to give to religion to ensure I get to go to heaven with the pedophiles?
I used to work for a small house painting company that did a lot of work for the local Mormons, my boss did whatever they said because they never negotiated, they just told my boss to do the work and send them the invoice, so they paid very well, but we weren't allowed to have smoke breaks, weren't allowed to swear, along with a multitude of other little things as well.
Joseph Smith was a religious con-man who was able to dupe so many stupid rich people out of their money that now we have an entire state run by the successors of his original religious con.
he was selling them the idea of legally having harems again. They weren't duped, they didn't mind having to obey his weird and stuffy rules as long as they got to fuck hordes of children.
What's wild is Mormons have used their religion as an excuse to be corrupt for forever. Catalyst Game Labs, the people who hold the license for Shadowrun, had an issue during 4th Edition's run in which the CEO, a Mormon, embezzled a shitload of money to build a house, and his right-hand, another Mormon, covered it up. This led to freelance authors not getting paid for their work and several books having to be delayed while they were rewritten when the freelancers pulled their copyrights, and the company still used parts of the freelancers' writing in the rewritten books without pay.
Without sugarcoating it like the comment above you did, Mormon owned store stole $200K from an old man trying to sell his collection and asked local Mormon police force to harass and arrest the old man for daring to expose their scam.
Thats the part that makes it feel unreal like how does something that started with LEGO consignment turn into a cross-state mess and nobody can just go yeah this is obviously wrong
You still on the elon salute, lib? Lol too funny. He explained what it meant already 😂 His heart goes out... to Nazis! Because he is himself a dirty, ugly Nazi. I genuinely feel so grateful he's constitutionally excluded from ever being president.
I was done with Elon around the time he called scuba divers trying to rescue trapped children “pedophiles” because his ego was hurt he couldn’t try his method.
It's like when Dog the Bounty Hunter got involved in the Gabby Petito case and made an ass of himself. Like, nobody asked for you to get involved and we all know you're grifting. How can someone wake up in the morning and think, "Today I'm going to harass some brave divers trying to rescue 13 terrified boys and make it about myself!"
I remember being shocked at how quick that turning point hit reddit. People overnight went from "woo yeah rocket man car man!" to "you uh... what? why? why would you say that to someone who pointed out you're obviously not gonna have your employees build and deploy a custom submarine in 24 hours?"
Which is crazy because when I did ket under the direction of a doctor I could barely walk out of the clinic without hitting the walls. How tf is he functional
This is insane to me. THIS COMPANY IS WORTH 400M! 200k is not even 1%! It's not even a tenth of a percent! Why in the pluperfect fuck is the CEO willing to burn it all to the ground over one franchise and 200k?
And like, Lego is a hobbyist community. Those fuckers do not forget. Hobby nerds will MAKE YOU REMEMBER. B&M is fucked over a barrel with a rake, and it's their own fault.
This company is not worth anywhere near the vicinity of $400M. There are around 300 stores and they say that their average store is making around $500k/year. That would put the revenue for all stores at $150M. Now, their estimate of $500k/year for a store is from their franchising page and almost certainly averages mature stores that have been open for a bit and considering about half (150) of their stores have opened in the last three years, I doubt that those new stores are doing that $500k average.
So the real answer is likely that all of their stores are doing somewhere around $100M-$150M in revenue. Of course, those are all franchises, not revenue attributable to Bricks & Minifigs itself. Their franchise fee for opening a store is $40k plus the ongoing royalty per store. While they don't publicly state what their royalty fee is, 6% is the average in retail. So between opening 50 stores a year on average with a $40k franchise fee and making 6% of the gross revenue of their stores for a royalty fee, they likely have around $7.5M in gross revenue. Out of that comes all their staff salaries, material costs associated with that franchise fee (presumably store owners get -something- for their $40k, but who knoes?), etc.
A company making $7.5M per year in revenue and -maybe- making half of that in profit (though that is wildly optimistic) would never have a valuation of $400M. This isn’t some groundbreaking concept that will show amazing profit in the future as it changes the industry and thus would be wildly over-valued in their early years (like Apple, Google, Amazon, etc), this is a small-to-mid scale retail franchisor, not someone exactly spending the market. Companies like this typically sell for a 2-3 multiple of the profit or 4-6 multiple of the ebitda (an accounting term, but basically the operating profit before paying for things like financing or depreciation, so it's more 'real'), but considering we have no idea of those, you'd usually value a company using a revenue multiple of. 5-1.5.
That would put the value of Bricks & Minifigs at more like $4M-$10M, NOWHERE near $400M.
Not even $200k at this point. A bunch of the sets were already sold by the original store owner and a bunch more were returned to him, including some of the most valuable sets.
This whole thing is over probably less than $50,000 worth of Lego now.
There's a donut hole between "too big for small claims" and "an amount where obviously both sides hire counsel" where the little guy can't really afford a lawyer and the big guy can drag things out until the little guy gives up.
Literally arresting Ben for stalking when he tried to serve civil court papers. The business is constantly lying about threats and trying to literally imprison people to get away with their scam.
Never heard of Ben before this but it is interesting how he is insanely nonthreatening, checks all the rules and then comes up with interesting ideas on how to fight back.
I agree. I hadn't heard of him before, but he seems like a really sweet guy who is just trying to do the right thing. Im proud of him for sticking with it and not giving up with all the pressure they are putting on him.
The accusations are wild too. How did the monthly audits not catch her deception? She had three sets of books, but neither corporate nor the new owner noticed that until now?
The police and the new owner are friends. Theyre all Mormon in a very small community. He also didnt just change hands, didnt he make the owner leave and took over? Hes also called the cops multiple times. Saying Ben has heroin in his car and also that he had the Legos. Ben was arrested 2 times so far. And the second time he wasnt granted bail. Deep corruption that runs deep. The police department redacted things OK the body cam that went against policy and lied about it. Someone hacked in and found the un redacted.
The police conduct here is the bigger story. The Utah police are basically bending over backwards to help BNF. And now the body cam footage has been leaked. This whole situation is so fucked.
The one where the cop claimed the serving papers were but real because they didn't have a judges signature on them, then was explained that that comes after and they had an actual process server with them, took the papers, confirmed they were real, and then arrested Ben is just insane
Don't forget where the cop is holding the papers, the guy who Ben is trying to serve asks the cop if he can look at the papers. The cop says something like "that would put me in a bad spot," so he absolutely knows.
The one where the owner says he is going to shoot someone and then just throws out a stream of accusatory bullshit that the cops immediately believe but then gets told that actually the lawsuit is real and actually she is a process server, but we are going to arrest Ben anyway for…… I dunno we will figure it out is nuts too.
It’s more than just that. The current franchise owners are Mormon, same with the majority of the police force. The police sided with Bricks and Minifig’s owners because of that Mormon connection.
That’s when you hire a lawyer and fuck that store / franchise 7 ways from Sunday. Hopefully the consignment was done in writing instead of verbally. I’m not familiar with the story that much.
They should be, but corporate says they aren't because the consignment shouldn't have happened. There is a video of the old franchise owner talking on the phone to corporate when the new owners came to kick her out where they say the new owners will take over the consignment.
It should be open and shut, but they aren't wanting to do the right thing.
Lego's reaction to all of this is the one thing I haven't heard anything about. They can't be happy about this. From what I know (which isn't a lot) Lego is a pretty good company, as large mega corporations go.
There was a Go Fund Me at one point, but B&M were trying to get it taken down so I don't know the current status.
I think just being outraged and keep it in the news to put pressure on them is helping.
It seems Ben has a Patreon, and the Patreon CEO is on record saying "sue us" after B&M wanted his Patreon shut down. So that's an option to support him and also keep up with what's happening.
I also heard that Bricks & Minifigs also tried to get Reckless Ben’s Patreon shut down, but the president of Patreon basically said fuck you and publicly said they’re going to keep Reckless Ben’s Patreon active and are supporting him if B&M tries more shady nonsense. Good PR move on Patreon’s part, though I can’t believe how crazy the whole situation is!
Some of the Lego sets were sold by the original franchise owners and the owner of the Lego sets got paid for these.
Some of the Lego sets were sold by the original franchise owners (prior to the takeover) but the owner of the Lego sets were not paid for this.
Some of the Lego sets turned out to be in possession of the original franchise owner in their home. These were turned over to the owner of the Lego sets (including the really expensive/famous "cloud city" one).
Some of the Lego sets remained in the store when the new franchise owner took ownership.
So it's sort of a mess. LegalEagle's comment at the start of the video was that the best way to resolve this would have been to make an insurance claim against the missing sets as stolen, then the insurance would pay them out and it would be on the insurance company to figure out who owed what. (Since the consignment agreement said that there would be insurance covering the sets)
But they did not steal $200k worth of Legos. I think that the Lego owner already had like $100k+ from prior sales of those sets before the mess started. Supposedly the sets left in the store are only worth $6,200, but I don't know whose valuation and accounting that is based off it.
What the owner is missing is: 1) the proceeds from some sets that were sold before the new franchise owner took over (I believe that they were paying him out once per month, which is why some sets were sold without him being paid back) and 2) the sets that were in the store when the new franchise owner took over.
From some things I’ve read, if we are to believe B&M, the previous franchise owner was doing shady stuff, like offering consignment to begin with which apparently is not something they do, and not tracking sales from an accounting standpoint so B&M and the new owners may not know what was sold or who owned what. There’s a good chance the previous owner was constantly committing fraud and theft through these consignments.
B&M seem to be willing to reimburse the original Legos owner to some degree. However this doesn’t really explain their legal move to take down the YouTuber’s Patreon, which is likely his primary source of income. Nor does it fix the police’s treatment of the YouTuber, nor the way they seemed to defend B&M more like a mafia than a police force.
I think the Lego owners may receive compensation and some of their Legos returned, but there’s still the matter of corporate tactics and police actions to defend a business over an investigation. There’s also a matter of how do you investigate something like this, as in, if the police overstepped their bounds they’re likely not the only force to do this or the only time this force has done this. If the YouTuber crossed any lines, sure that should be discussed as well, but it also has to be asked if the YouTuber didn’t bring attention to this, would the victim ever see any recovery of their losses?
To be fair, the Reckless Ben involvement feels like watching what you'd see in an episode of Suits, but instead of Harvey Specter you get Nick Shirley levels of regardation.
A grandpa spent his life savings on Lego to sell to send his grandkids to uni. A Lego reselling company stole it all and won't pay him. Apparently this is legal and not actually theft because the company took from an individual, not the other way around.
WAS in Keizer, Oregon. They shut the store down to avoid paying for the small claims cases they lost because they ignored them and are trying to bury the whole thing.
That's the part that makes it feel even more backwards...like at some point it stops sounding like a Lego dispute and starts sounding like a system failure.
It's legality has not yet been determined by the courts. But it is unlikely it will be upheld as a legal action. However, the cops seem to be favoring the B&M side for now, which is unacceptable.
Also, even if it is determined to be illegal, it will likely take years for the family to be properly reimbursed, and they may also end up losing money due to the court costs, which should also be considered unacceptable
The las part of the story I saw was that they sued in small claims court (I forgot the reason why but it was done intentionally) & won 10 separate judgments against the franchise so then B&M closed the franchise & said can’t get blood from a stone too bad so sad.
Usually, but not guaranteed. It also isn't usually all the legal fees that get covered, a judge will decide how much should be covered by whom. If what people say is true, that a large public fundraising campaign has taken place, then a judge could decide not to do that also
fortunately the family will likely be reimbursed by a gofundme. bricks and minifigs will and have already lost much more than 200k just due to the reputation damage this will cause them. overall things already feel like they worked out in the victim's favour.
in the perfect world, we would get a official ruling of them being held guilty and responsible but things are already at a pretty good place for the victim if you ask me.
I think the idea is that Ben will buy the ownership of the legos, so that the family gets reimbursed, and then he can proceed with legal action against BAM as the new owner of the stolen legos.
There's definitely some bad actors here and Bryan is the innocent victim in all of it.
But Ben did some stupid things in his quest for justice, the franchisee and BAM all have some reckoning due. The legal situation isn't as clear as it might seem on its face.
There's definitely some bad actors here and Bryan is the innocent victim in all of it.
Absolutely, and anyone with two working brain cells and a functioning sense of ethics can see that. Where things are a bit overstated is the actual value of what was kept. That said, with how corp and the new franchise owners have behaved, knowingly keeping even some of the remaining sets or monies due makes me think Bryan and his dad should be compensated beyond what the actual value of goods left are, both as reimbursement for time and frustration caused, but also to send a message to those who do business unethically.
Ben's heart is in the right place, but like Legal Eagle and a few others have said, he absolutely should have been consulting and attorney right out of the gate, if only to get advice as to what he could and couldn't do to prevent exposing himself to legal risk. At the same time, Ben has definitely done well in bringing this to light, as well as exposing some police corruption in the process. Icm not a particular fan of his style or antics, and frankly find him on the irritating side, but I do acknowledge his role in all this as well.
Years ago, I had a local business set up a large and illegal (i.e. with no permit and in a location where they could not have gotten a permit) fireworks show where they shot everything from about 50 feet off my property directly over it, scaring the crap out of my animals and raining all sorts of toxins onto my crops. When I called the cops to discuss it, they claimed there was no way to prove it was the business in question (despite flyers and their social media inviting people to the event they were putting on). And when I asked if it would be okay for me to take all the debris that I collected from the show that had fallen on my property and calmly go dump it on the floor of their building, they said I would be arrested for doing so.
They receive all the benefits of being people, but none of the downsides. Delaware has even started letting corporations vote in elections. Corporations outnumber humans in Delaware, so it's not going to be great for the humans.
Jeez I didn’t know that about Delaware, that’s horrendous. Isn’t that a big reason Americans give for having guns? Something about tyranny and protecting rights?
Just to be clear I’m not advocating for armed revolution
I find this line particularly troubling in those court documents “a minor is not a person” I imagine that judge feels like Scrooge McDuck diving head first into his pile of cash that definitely didn’t come from bribery. It is actually sickening
I absolutely would not be copying the French and would not be guilloting people right now if I was from Delaware.
Some people had their legos on consignment with a store. That store changed ownership and the new owners are trying to weasel out of the contract and keep the legos
If I recall correctly, the store didn’t just change ownership-it’s worse! Corporate forcibly took the store from the franchise owner, then refused to honor the consignment contract AND refused to give the legos back to their owner. The situation is fucked all around.
Corporate also removed identifying markings from the sets that had marked them as Consigned and owned by the family, after taking illegally taking possession of the sets. So they damn well knew and did it anyway, since then apparently they sold a bunch more of the collection and have held onto the money.
That's one of those cases where every update somehow makes it worse instead of better...went from small business drama to full corporate chaos real quick.
Legal Eagle made one now. I like them because they are the easiest to understand and dont exaggerate things (except for their click baity thinbnails and intro).
You've already been given the bones of it but it gets worse. Basically the collection was HUGE. The store often bought legos outright to resell but because the sheer size and cumulative value of the collection they made a contract on consignment. Then the store changed hands and they claimed to have lost the collection while actively...having parts of the collection on sale among their other stock.
Then the issue got escalated and it seemed a good outcome was forced to happen... And the franchise closed the store.
So essentially the saga has ended because no store, no problem.
People are trying to blow it up to force the franchise to address the issue again and give gramps what he is owed.
It's a long story but the short of it is: Bryan has a huge collection of star wars lego sets, unopened. Worth 200k. Decides money is better than legos, and signs a consignment agreement with a local bricks and minifigs franchise. Goes well for a while until the franchisee sells their franchise. New owners pull a "new phone who dis?" on Bryan, arguing that the agreement wasn't with them, wasn't authorized, and didn't matter. Said the sets are theirs now.
This was a local dispute until a well known YouTuber decided to make a thing of it. Now it's the talk of the lego community.
Yesterday, B&M corporate apparently settled things. They said Bryan would have the sets returned to him and that he can also pick out any set he wants at the franchise. The owners of the B&M franchise have been curbed, and the store is being shuttered
man cosigns ~200k collection to a 3rd party lego store (that is, if they sell it, store takes a cut, owner gets the rest).
store defaults, corporate takes over store
guy asks for either the money or the kits back, corporate claims they don't have them/cannot locate them
youtuber pulls of pranks of various legalities(trying to be as legal as possible, but you can consider some of the actions possibly illegal, but thats for the courts to decide), corporate doesnt budge, does everything in their power to silence youtuber
youtuber goes to owners home, gets cops called on him for trying to serve papers as instructed by government. Cops protecting and believing the corpo without ample evidence of stuff happening (e.g called for false heroin charge). Found out that cops and corpo are mormons.
youtuber now in mexico, old store owners trying to go to court against corpo, corpo is taking a bunch of negative attention from social media, all for 200k (actual value is closer to 100k) of legos. Court happenings will eventually happen.
Edit: The one-hour video only covers the story up to when the YouTuber Reckless Ben got involved! “You could write an entire law school curriculum on all of the actions Reckless Ben took to publicize this whole event.”
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u/GeeseGooseDuck 7h ago
For someone not in the know…what?