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Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

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Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#481

Post by fancyfredbot »

mattmaroon wrote: post #337

I just don’t understand why a company with $95m in sales would steal $200k. That’s a fraction of a percent of sales for the year. There’s now a boycott against them that will easily cost them more than that. If the case is as this blog says, it cannot be hard to find a lawyer to do this one pro bono. Breach of contract is one of the few things in America where you can sue for your legal fees. If you take over a busin…

I agree with you. It makes no rational sense for the corporation to act this way. I can see how they end up losing a court case but can't explain why they don't pay up.

It sounds like the first franchise collapsed owing money. I expect the company had created strong incentives for employees to claw that back. Someone has followed those incentives against the interest of the corporation. This happens all the time although in this case they break the law.

Eventually there's a lawsuit and a lot more people get involved including people without any incentive to do illegal things. However those involved originally present some varnished version of the truth (to avoid getting fired!) the company trusts this version of events. They decide to fight the case in court.

Then they lose the case. Those who decided to fight it realise they made a bad choice and they now look bad too. It's at this point that the weirdest thing happens. Why do they choose to close the store instead of paying up? My guess is that it became personal for someone.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#482

Post by mcv »

Pragmata wrote: post #432
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard to understand. A man gave a store merchandise on consignment, signed a contract with the store manager. The manager lost control of the store to corporate. The goods were still there, still on display and being sold. Corporate says, "this is mine now" and refuses to honor the contract. "It wasn't our name on it, says right here that the previous store manager signed this, and she's no longer with u…

> The goods were still there, still on display and being sold. This appears to be in dispute. As per bricks and minifigs: >It was clear the full list of inventory in his documentation was not located in the store. What items could be reasonably identified as allegedly belonging to the consignor was offered back to the consignor, but that offer was refused. >A deeper dive into the sales receipts uncovered that a signi…

Do they have any evidence of those claims? So far, all evidence seems to be against them.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#483

Post by itsalwayscults »

jawns wrote: post #114

Unless the entire corporation files for bankruptcy, they can't just shut down a store to avoid paying a debt, much less a court judgment. There's clearly something else going on here that the blog post is either intentionally leaving out or grossly misunderstanding.

> There's clearly something else going on here

Yes, what you're missing on is that it's an intentional stalling strategy. It's obvious the debt goes to either the corporate, or to whoever owns the affiliate store. None of that is the problem. None of that is meant to be what's stated. Closing the store was done to hide the responsibility and the responsibili-tee.

The video has people doing that type of shit down to the leve of the employee

> talk to the owner

> okay, give me their number

> no

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#484

Post by lazyasciiart »

hnlmorg wrote: post #427
munk-a wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't - deprecation of held goods is always a risk and if you're working on consignment then that comes with weird financial liabilities. If there's a flood and you lose your inventory it sucks - if there's a flood and you lose an inventory of consigned values then suddenly you're potentially exposed to paying market value for a number of items in addition to all the site damage you'll need to address. Capacity is…

None of this is a risk with Lego. Depreciation: not going to happen on Star Wars sets that are not longer in production. Water damage: Lego is water proof. Breakage: being easy to take apart and put back together is Lego’s core principle.

a large part of the value of secondhand stuff is in the box and packaging, assuming those nice boxes in the image were from his collection - those are a little more fragile than the Lego pieces themselves.

Edit: wait, the whole collection was sealed and new in box. Yea, just water damage to those boxes would cut the value by at least 10%. Collectors are picky as shit.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#485

Post by itsalwayscults »

solomonb wrote: post #172
ogig wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should watch the two videos if you haven't because it's full of jewels. The kind of conversations and plays recorded point to a pattern. This is not their first time doing something shady, they think they can get away with it, and they greatly underestimated Ben determination and resources. "are you stupid?", "you stole them", "i swear to god i'll return them if you send me first a false apology/confession" are s…

I'm not doubting the claims at all. I simply don't understand why a massive company would shoot themselves in the foot over something relatively small.

Because unfortunately, as any Harry Dubois of the world soon screams off the roof naked and drunk, you can't become a massive company in the first place without theft.

Wage theft is the most common crime in the world.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#486

Post by mcv »

ChrisRR wrote: post #476
999900000999 wrote: post #466

Way to do millions of dollars in PR damage over 200k. As this story spreads people will just assume the whole chain is bad. The bigger story is an elderly man needing to sell his toys to pay for cancer treatment. We could give all people free cancer treatment, but defense contractors need money.

I totally don't get it. If I were the head of corporate I would've just given them the sets back to avoid all of the backlash.

But you're not. The head of corporate is someone who thought he could get away with this. And almost did, until Reckless Ben showed up.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#487

Post by mcv »

passive wrote: post #352
mattmaroon wrote: post #337

I just don’t understand why a company with $95m in sales would steal $200k. That’s a fraction of a percent of sales for the year. There’s now a boycott against them that will easily cost them more than that. If the case is as this blog says, it cannot be hard to find a lawyer to do this one pro bono. Breach of contract is one of the few things in America where you can sue for your legal fees. If you take over a busin…

Because this isn't the first collection they've stolen from someone, presumably. It's a lot easier to become a really successful company if you can keep your inventory costs down. Perhaps by investing in local law enforcement instead, to make sure no one looks too close at said inventory? Donald Trump is famous for not paying even really cheap contractor bills, because he knew he could get away with it.

This is the answer. They thought they could get away with it. And from what I understand, they nearly did, because the original victim couldn't afford the risk of a lengthy and expensive lawsuit.

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#488

Post by _zoltan_ »

mcv wrote: post #486
ChrisRR wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally don't get it. If I were the head of corporate I would've just given them the sets back to avoid all of the backlash.

But you're not. The head of corporate is someone who thought he could get away with this. And almost did, until Reckless Ben showed up.

but ... they did get away with it? based on the blog post, it ends with the store closure? (which I don't understand why)

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#489

Post by james_marks »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #18
gkoberger wrote: post #11

I'm really confused by this blog. There seems to be a large portion of the story missing. I can't figure out the correlation between the owner losing their franchise and the rest of the story. Why did they want to steal the sets? If they're really a $400M company (whatever that means), why would they do this over (at most) $200k? I couldn't figure out what is being claimed here. I'm not saying it's not true, I just c…

It's not that hard to understand. A man gave a store merchandise on consignment, signed a contract with the store manager. The manager lost control of the store to corporate. The goods were still there, still on display and being sold. Corporate says, "this is mine now" and refuses to honor the contract. "It wasn't our name on it, says right here that the previous store manager signed this, and she's no longer with u…

When the parent buys the store, they are also buying their contracts and obligations.

Unless the contract was written so poorly this didn’t happen?

Re: Bricks and Minifigs Stole a Man's $200k Lego Collection

#490

Post by prepend »

How is this company, BAM Franchising Inc, valued at $400M?

They aren’t publicly traded so it’s hard to find out.

It seems like there’s almost no employees and they collect a franchising fee and 6% royalty on the 200+ franchises that BAM claims makes $570k average annual revenue [0].

.06 x 570k x 200 = 6,840,00

So not sure how a $400M valuation comes from $7M/year in revenue.

And this is revenue, who knows what the profit is.

Still, I was surprised there’s 200 franchisees.

[0] https://franchise.bricksandminifigs.com/the-financials/

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