Bricks and Minifigs Situation...

[Darth_Bane13]

In case you somehow haven't seen it yet, Bricks and Minifigs stole $200,000 worth of Lego sets from an old man. 

 

[Yoggington]

I found this a decent summary for thse who prefer text: https://mybricklog.com/blog/bricks-minifigs-corporate-stole-old-mans-200000-lego-collection

[Murdoch17]

My local independent LEGO resale shop, 'The Minifig Shop' in St. Louis, Missouri just put out a Facebook post today saying they keep getting negative reviews because of this debacle and reminding people they are not in any way a B&M shop.

(Also, that is an AI video.)

Edited yesterday at 02:17 PM by Murdoch17

[danth]

1 hour ago, Murdoch17 said:

It's an independent franchisee of the B&M brand who did wrong: not the company itself...

Okay so I just watched the video, and I barely understand the situation, but doesn't the video allege that corporate took the store and all the inventory?

[Darth_Bane13]

1 hour ago, Murdoch17 said:

It's an independent franchisee of the B&M brand who did wrong: not the company itself... and this is having ripples effects on other LEGO resale businesses totally not related to Bricks & Minifigs. My local independent LEGO resale shop, 'The Minifig Shop' in St. Louis, Missouri just put out a Facebook post today saying they keep getting negative reviews because of this debacle and reminding people they are not in any way a B&M shop.

(Also, that is an AI video.)

1. Bricks and Minifigs corporate took control of the Salem location from the original franchise owner, Chrystal. Here's her YT video down below.

2. Yes people should be aware that non Bricks & Minifigs Lego stores are not involved in this.

3. It's an AI thumbnail, the video is not AI. 

 

9 minutes ago, danth said:

Okay so I just watched the video, and I barely understand the situation, but doesn't the video allege that corporate took the store and all the inventory?

Yup. @Murdoch17 Clearly just didn't watch the video or read the article provided by @Yoggington.

[Murdoch17]

4 minutes ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

SNIP

Yup. @Murdoch17 Clearly just didn't watch the video or read the article provided by @Yoggington.

The post with the blog link by that other user was posted while I was posting my own comment.. I couldn't click on it and read it because I couldn't see it at that time. I apologize for being misinformed about the company, but in case you weren't aware, your post comes across as rather rude @Darth_Bane13. Also: I don't watch anything with AI in it, even in the thumbnail, because of some very good reasons I'm not getting into.

[Darth_Bane13]

48 minutes ago, Murdoch17 said:

The post with the blog link by that other user was posted while I was posting my own comment.. I couldn't click on it and read it because I couldn't see it at that time. I apologize for being misinformed about the company, but in case you weren't aware, your post comes across as rather rude @Darth_Bane13. Also: I don't watch anything with AI in it, even in the thumbnail, because of some very good reasons I'm not getting into.

I apologize for seeming rude, but you made multiple false claims that could have pretty easily been checked. I don't love the use of the AI thumbnail, but the video is definitely high quality stuff made by a real person. Reckless Ben clearly puts a lot of work into what he does, I'd suggest not writing off the video because of a thumbnail.

[danth]

Man, this whole thing is insane. Various franchises have been caught doing shady stuff before, and now with this fiasco, I think the whole BAM brand is toast. Which is unfortunate for franchisees that are trying to do honest business. There's a Bricks & Minifigs near me that I've been to a few times, and I now I really don't feel like stepping foot in there.

It's really not good for the Lego community as a whole to be associated with these kinds of losers and thieves. 

8 hours ago, Yoggington said:

I found this a decent summary for thse who prefer text: https://mybricklog.com/blog/bricks-minifigs-corporate-stole-old-mans-200000-lego-collection

Thanks, what a wild read.

The summary from that link:

Quote

Here is the full documented sequence: Bricks & Minifigs took possession of Bryan Mansell's $200,000 LEGO collection with zero legal justification. They refused to return it. They threatened him with financial ruin if he pushed back. They lied to their own employees about the situation. They had people physically removed when those people showed up with paperwork. They called the police on victims attempting to serve legal papers, repeatedly providing false information to officers. They were found liable in court. They closed the store rather than pay. And in the process, a man trying to document and expose this spent a month in jail, had his shoulder dislocated during a raid, and was targeted with a fabricated drug report, all while pursuing entirely legal remedies.

The man who a court found liable for keeping $200,000 worth of someone else's property walked away. The people who tried to stop him got arrested.

 

[danth]

Guys. GUYS. This is absolutely insane. You have to see this follow up video:

 

[Mylenium]

The American "legal" system never ceases to amaze... The air is rife with corruption and incompetence.

Mylenium

[9v system]

its now reaching world wide lego and brick building groups even here in AUS my feed has been inundated with posts about it, been following it like a hawk. part 2 is insane.

[Murdoch17]

10 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

I apologize for seeming rude, but you made multiple false claims that could have pretty easily been checked. I don't love the use of the AI thumbnail, but the video is definitely high quality stuff made by a real person. Reckless Ben clearly puts a lot of work into what he does, I'd suggest not writing off the video because of a thumbnail.

AI stuff is lazy and uses far too many precious resources to create said images. Thus I refuse to watch anything with AI in it (especially such click-bait looking images) based on principle. Also, I apologized for my errors.

Edited yesterday at 11:20 AM by Murdoch17

[Yperio_Bricks]

B&M can be lucky if they get out of this intact. Instead of silently paying for the stolen Legos they now are dealing with damaged reputation that will cost them millions. Now there's so much world-wide buzz around this whole scandal and big YT channels get millions of views reporting about the topic. The leaked email that corporate sent out to their franchisees on how to handle the situation is comedy gold. Surely the Lego and Star Wars communities will not forget about this in a few days as B&M hopes and kinda writes in the email lmao  

Edited yesterday at 07:37 PM by Yperio_Bricks
wording

[SpacePolice89]

This is wrong in so many different ways and should be investigated on a federal level.

[danth]

6 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

This is wrong in so many different ways and should be investigated on a federal level.

Unfortunately, the current administration is even more corrupt than anything you see here.

Edited yesterday at 05:51 PM by danth

[SpacePolice89]

5 minutes ago, danth said:

Unfortunately, the current administration is even more corrupt than anything you see here.

Yes, that's unfortunately true. For a moment I forgot that the FBI is no longer functioning properly.

[Darth_Bane13]

6 hours ago, danth said:

Unfortunately, the current administration is even more corrupt than anything you see here.

This, plus the FBI recruits a lot of Mormons; which we saw in the videos are good at protecting their own.

[BrickBob Studpants]

Amazing how these people are doubling down, risking their entire bloody business instead of just giving back the collection to its rightful owner  This will hopefully cost them dearly.

[JesseNight]

Sadly they've been winning so far for the most part. Bad rep will cost them for sure, but will be forgotten over time. They literally said if they went up against Corporate, they'd bleed them dry and that is what they are trying to do. Hoping they'd give up or run out of resources to keep up the fight.

I'm shocked how the accused has to be served by the accuser in person before it can even go to court in the US. Makes it way too easy for the accused to get out of it, especially in times of camera doorbells. In my country, the serving is done by the accuser's lawyer and even if the accused ignores it, the case is still on. They can stall but not indefinitely.

This is probably gonna become a very long story. I hope the owner gets his stuff (or the value of it) back. And if possible at all, some jail time for the criminals.

[Darth_Bane13]

Good video by DuckBricks

[Mylenium]

3 hours ago, JesseNight said:

I'm shocked how the accused has to be served by the accuser in person before it can even go to court in the US. Makes it way too easy for the accused to get out of it, especially in times of camera doorbells. In my country, the serving is done by the accuser's lawyer and even if the accused ignores it, the case is still on. They can stall but not indefinitely.

At least as far as I understand the US system from following Legal Eagle and a few other law-related YouTube channels that isn't exactly how it works. The main difference is that a judge has to rule on it and until that the case is suspended whereas in most European countries the clock keeps ticking and procedures just continue. There are of course many other details to take into account, but I think even in the US you are considered served after two years when your case gets published on the respective web sites of the DOJ or the states' legal systems or it's announced the good old fashioned way in a newspaper.

Mylenium

[Kit Figsto]

In all honesty, I wasn't too surprised when I saw this.  I don't have a Bricks and Minifigs near me, but I've visited a store or two and felt that the pricing was very high for what it was.  Even my local LEGO resale shop, I've had mixed experiences with them.  Their pricing on sets generally is the cheapest Bricklink price in the US plus 25% on top of that, but they seem to do well enough.  I've bought and sold extensively on BL, and the offers that I've had from them when selling stuff was probably 40% of what I could've made myself on BL.  

They're allowed to price stuff how they want, and I understand that they have to make a profit when they buy and sell, but it feels a bit greedy to me when I'd be in one month and see a sealed set from 2003 marked at $25, and then three months later, the exact same set is priced at $50.  I've found deals occasionally, where it's cheaper to just buy it there than buy online and pay for shipping, but the vast majority of the time, I've found that these resale shops are a horrible deal.  Again, this isn't even a B&M, this is just a local LEGO resale store.

[Darth_Bane13]

1 hour ago, Kit Figsto said:

In all honesty, I wasn't too surprised when I saw this.  I don't have a Bricks and Minifigs near me, but I've visited a store or two and felt that the pricing was very high for what it was.  Even my local LEGO resale shop, I've had mixed experiences with them.  Their pricing on sets generally is the cheapest Bricklink price in the US plus 25% on top of that, but they seem to do well enough.  I've bought and sold extensively on BL, and the offers that I've had from them when selling stuff was probably 40% of what I could've made myself on BL.  

They're allowed to price stuff how they want, and I understand that they have to make a profit when they buy and sell, but it feels a bit greedy to me when I'd be in one month and see a sealed set from 2003 marked at $25, and then three months later, the exact same set is priced at $50.  I've found deals occasionally, where it's cheaper to just buy it there than buy online and pay for shipping, but the vast majority of the time, I've found that these resale shops are a horrible deal.  Again, this isn't even a B&M, this is just a local LEGO resale store.

I agree this is why I've never bought or sold to them, seems like a waste of money.

 

Other Bricks and Minifig stores have been known to be sketchy as well, as seen in this video.