Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

mybricklog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 704 posts

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

#641

Post by fusslo »

qingcharles wrote: post #637
fusslo wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reading through the court documents now: 1. BAM expresses that the original franchise owner (Chrystal) was heavily in debt to BAM ($175,000 ) owed to BAM 2. When Chystal told BAM of her intent to sell, BAM 'repossessed' her store and her inventory to help cover her debt (really, it was the her LLC's debt, but I'm using Chrysal as a shorthand). There is a clause in the franchise agreement that says everything IN the s…

Chrystal, in one of her posts, made a case that they were in debt to BAM because of misconduct from BAM who were not honoring their side of the franchise agreement.

oh for SURE there is more to what the documents say. This is 100% BAM's cherry-picked side that is leaving some stuff out. They're mostly focused on Ben's actions to justify their complaints

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

#642

Post by sgerenser »

prepend wrote: post #490

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 pr…

I can't actually find anything that supports a $400M valuation. ChatGPT seems to agree, that there's no public documents supporting that valuation, and an estimate of $6-$10M year in revenue sounds in the ballpark, meaning a value nowhere near $400M. But something as high as $100M is probably appropriate if their profit margins are high, which would be expected for a franchisor.

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

#643

Post by qingcharles »

fusslo wrote: post #641
qingcharles wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrystal, in one of her posts, made a case that they were in debt to BAM because of misconduct from BAM who were not honoring their side of the franchise agreement.

oh for SURE there is more to what the documents say. This is 100% BAM's cherry-picked side that is leaving some stuff out. They're mostly focused on Ben's actions to justify their complaints

There's a thread starting here to discuss BAM vs. Chrystal:

https://www.reddit.com/r/RecklessBen/comments/1trarbh/bam_ac...

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

#644

Post by qingcharles »

fusslo wrote: post #640
fusslo wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reading through the court documents now: 1. BAM expresses that the original franchise owner (Chrystal) was heavily in debt to BAM ($175,000 ) owed to BAM 2. When Chystal told BAM of her intent to sell, BAM 'repossessed' her store and her inventory to help cover her debt (really, it was the her LLC's debt, but I'm using Chrysal as a shorthand). There is a clause in the franchise agreement that says everything IN the s…

The VERY first mention of Mansell's in person actions are "Bryan showed up later that day and began yelling at personnel..." really? Bryan Mansell is SO unhinged and deranged that he started the interaction with yelling at personnel? I think BAM's ultimate claim is that Chrystal either stole Bryan's inventory OR already sold it all before BAM's repossession. Since BAM claim's the store's inventory at time of reposses…

BAM is not to be trusted in anything they say that isn't under oath. They've repeatedly made statements which are easily and provably false, and have also made false criminal complaints against Ben in order to harass him, and potentially have him injured or killed.

That said, a lot of this would wash out in discovery where both sides can put forth their evidence, followed by some in-person testimony under oath.

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

#645

Post by kjs3 »

z3c0 wrote: post #381
kjs3 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You seem to deeply misunderstand how juries work. It's an assortment of peoples for a reason.

When I was called up for jury duty last year, the foreman instructed the all of us jury candidates that we should only evaluate the what was presented in court, and not to make decisions based on whatever is on the nightly news that night, and especially not whatever gets posted about the case on social media. That's the foremans emphasis, not mine. This was said not once, but several times a day while the process worked it's way out.

So I might misunderstand juries (sorry...suppressing a laugh there...assortment of people...), but I'm going to go with the instructions from the guy who works in the courthouse (I suspect he knows something about how juries work, but you probably disagree), and not some critical thinking impaired drone who accepts YouTube screeds from anyone who makes money from uncritical people accepting whatever they drool out as The Truth. Hit like so they can keep you full of infotainment...er...Truthiness!

I know I'm in the minority around here, waiting for inconvenient 'facts' to be established and being skeptical about obviously biased sources before I declare a guilty verdict and break out the torches and pitchforks, but I just can't help it. The curse of thinking independently over tracking social media upvotes.

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

#646

Post by alexjplant »

zargon wrote: post #406
throwaway85825 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder of mormonism married a child and given that mormon doctrine is just whatever he said definitionaly it's an official sanctioned thing. Some coercion? It was entirely external pressure. Some of the mormons haven't even stopped polygamy today.

> Some of the mormons haven't even stopped polygamy today. Using the term 'Mormon' to refer to the the entire family tree including splinter sects is just a recipe for confusion. Adherents to splinter sects, excluding RLDS, number in the tens of thousands compared to millions of CoJCoLDS. The problems with CoJCoLDS are damning on their own without needing to conflate facts with fringe groups.

I've heard several LDS adherents talk about these people and I get the impression that they really don't appreciate the practices or the negative media attention that the polygamists bring to their faith. It's rather out of character for each of the people I heard this from to speak ill of anybody at all so I'm pretty sure they feel strongly about it.

As an atheist I don't claim loudmouth internet "GoD iSnT ReAl ShEePlE" edgelords so I understand the frustration.

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

#647

Post by Nevermark »

nine_k wrote: post #361
michaelt wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selling on consignment can be an absolutely great deal for shops, under the right conditions. If I'm a lego trader and I buy your set for $900 hoping to sell it later for $1000, in the meantime that's $900 I can't invest in anything else. And maybe I guessed the set's value wrong and I end up unloading it for $800, taking a loss. On the other hand, if I agree to sell that same set on consignment? Zero capital outlay,…

> just some shelf space Unless the store owns its building and has too little inventory to cover the shelves, the cost of not filling the shelves with the right goods is quite serious. In a low-margin business like retail, "just some shelf space" reads almost like "just some gold bars".

You only take on consignment product you deem sellable. A value judgment made for anything in the store.

But instead of costs = (product purchase + shelf space), the costs are only (self space).

So "just some shelf space" is correct in fact and implication.

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

#648

Post by taneq »

sgerenser wrote: post #527
taneq wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s like when I got my shower sealed and then it started leaking within the warranty period. The company claimed that they were the new owners and had purchased the business but not the warranty obligations (!) and I’d have to find the original owner and try to make him honour the warranty. Which was complete BS, obviously, but it wasn’t worth taking to court. :/

There actually are legal ways to do that… instead of buying the company, you start a new company, and just buy assets of the old company (e.g. phone numbers, web sites, trademarks, customer lists). Seems shady but apparently it’s pretty common.

Common doesn’t mean not shady. In Australia there are measures in place (eg. national registry for company directors, personal liability for directors) to combat this kind of ‘phoenixing’.

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

#649

Post by K0balt »

kmeisthax wrote: post #631
K0balt wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a farcical notion that people are uniformly rational actors, as well as the notion that rational is adjacent to just. It’s an unfortunate fact that many people in positions of wealth and power default to “F-you my lawyers will drown you and I will win” in every single case, regardless of merit. Many times, that is the singular strategy that has put them in that position of wealth and power. Many times, they appl…

> Its continuously surprising to plebs because it goes against the fantasy of the fundamental justice of society that they have been inculcated with, a convenient lie that keeps powerless people in their lane and justifies the use of police powers to protect the criminal activity of the owner class. Even without the propaganda factor, its also surprising to plebs because there are plenty of plebs who try similar sche…

lol. Yeah, being an a-whole isn’t the exclusive hobby of the wealthy, by a long shot. Crappy character, unlike the future, is relatively evenly distributed.

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

#650

Post by LorenPechtel »

nullfield wrote: post #584
superxpro12 wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah you cant just unilaterally cancel the contract in which you agreed to hold the goods for sale, and then take possession without any reimbursement. You either need to pay the sales price of the consigned items, or just give them back. If you do neither, its the same exact thing as theft. Which is what they did. They took possession of the 200k lego set with no reimbursement. Just plain ol' theft.

When this is so clearly theft, how can the police just claim “it’s a civil matter”? They seem to like that excuse, I know… but gahhh!

The police are right.

This is a dispute about who is the rightful owner of the Lego. That is a civil matter to be decided by the courts. Doesn't matter how clear the evidence, such disputes are for the courtroom.

Post reply on HN