Bricks and Minifigs Youtube Drama over Legos

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

I don't know if anyone pays attention to stuff like this, but I find it fascinating. There are all sorts of videos out right now regarding this but the tldr recap is essentially:
Guy sells family lego collection, valued somewhere between $100K-$200K, on consignment at a bricks and minifigs (bam) local store.
Bricks and minifigs seizes the local store and assigns new owners.
New owners don't recognize the consignment agreement, confiscate the legos that are in the store on consignment, and won't give the guy his legos back and continue to sell them.
New owners tell the guy to sue them.
Guy tries to sue them, finds out it'll be $60K+ just to get started and take years to resolve.
Guy goes to youtube to find help.
Youtuber 'reckless ben' agrees to help and ...

The videos live up to the username and are wildly entertaining.

In the process of trying to recover ~$100K in legos, they try to get the cops to investigate, they won't. Youtubers all buy $10K worth of the consigned legos from the guy. They can't get the legos from bam so take it to small claims court and win. Bam store shuts down without paying or returning the legos. They attempt to take the owners, individually, to small claims court and while trying to serve papers to the owners...they get swatted then arrested.

No one knows what the result will be, but the fallout is crazy to watch. Youtuber is being sued by bam in a civil rico case and facing countless criminal charges including felony stalking so he apparently fled to mexico. The police department is facing massive backlash from the public due to almost undeniable civil rights violations. Bam is also facing massive backlash from the public so they recently reached out to the guy who owned the legos saying they want to make him whole...and if they had done that at the beginning, none of this would have happened. At this point, idk if he even technically owns them anymore. Ben has a gofundme up that's raised upwards of $400K. A TRO has been granted to remove all content from patreon and youtube. Patreon told Bam, literally, to 'stuff it' in an uploaded video. Ben hasn't been served with papers yet and his videos remain up, for now.

ETA: A lot of it is wrong/stupid, but what I find so fascinating is it touches on so many of the struggles everyone faces today. Corporate greed protected by the huge upfront cost of litigation and the complete powerlessness against those corporations, police corruption, an utter lack of adherence to any sort of law, etc. It's just...wild.

[cardinalkarp]

I haven’t seen or heard of this, but it sounds interesting. And it’s just another thing pointing to how broke this system we have in the US is on every level.

As I’ve said before, we’ve been taken over by corporations and honestly, w/o a complete overhaul of the system, which is nearly impossible since the corporations also own all of our lawmakers, it’s going to take nothing less than some sort of revolution (which will be nasty).

Our household tries so hard to detach ourselves from these behemoths by buying local and from small businesses as much as we can, but it’s hard…REALLY hard. And for the everyday American, who typically base their buying habits on convenience and affordability, we’ll never get out of this hell scape we currently find ourselves in.

[GeddyWrox]

I haven’t seen or heard of this, but it sounds interesting. And it’s just another thing pointing to how broke this system we have in the US is on every level.

As I’ve said before, we’ve been taken over by corporations and honestly, w/o a complete overhaul of the system, which is nearly impossible since the corporations also own all of our lawmakers, it’s going to take nothing less than some sort of revolution (which will be nasty).

Our household tries so hard to detach ourselves from these behemoths by buying local and from small businesses as much as we can, but it’s hard…REALLY hard. And for the everyday American, who typically base their buying habits on convenience and affordability, we’ll never get out of this hell scape we currently find ourselves in.

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[GeddyWrox]

Fascinating, AW! I had not heard about this, and I follow (not closely) a couple of Lego and Brick accounts on Facebook. Guess they didn't want to touch it with a 10' pole. LOL

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Fascinating, AW! I had not heard about this, and I follow (not closely) a couple of Lego and Brick accounts on Facebook. Guess they didn't want to touch it with a 10' pole. LOL

I feel bad for everyone involved outside of the corporate asshats more/less creating this entire fiasco. Everyone in the community is hurt by it seemingly.

[AdmiralKird]

I've followed this heavily for the past few weeks. A lot of people get confused going over the saga because it is one of those things that just should not happen. Cooler heads should have prevailed and come to an agreement. But I think its very simple:

Brandon and Josh were looking for free inventory for the Eugene store and stole the Lego from Mansell (and probably corporate as well).

They went in to get the Salem store for corporate, heard about the consignment deal, and didn't care. They probably didn't even tell Ammon for a long time. They took the majority of the legos down to Eugene and sold them in that store over the next year, as well as some in the Salem store. Eventually after a lot of forensic accounting and attestation audits that will take the better part of maybe a year, Ben's lawyers they're going to match the Eugene store to the missing inventory.

And why I think this could go on for a long time is.... I wouldn't even put it past Brandon and Josh to try and doctor the point of sale records at the Eugene store in the meantime, which is going to slow things down. These people are really stupid criminals, have kept digging their grave deeper with more lies, and will continue to do so. I don't expect them to stop until they just get flat caught at the end of the line when the stakes are the highest.