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

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 can't follow the story at all.

EDIT: After reading other sources, it seems that the franchise both owed $200k to BAM (unrelated) and also made a deal with the Mansell's directly. And it seems like the parent company is saying the sets are theirs because the store owed them money, while the Mansells are (correctly) saying consignment means they own the sets, not the franchise. BAM crossed into definitively illegal territory when they continued to sell sets after the Mandells asserted they wanted their property back (as confirmed by a "sting" operation).

The Reckless Ben stuff is actually pretty interesting: https://youtu.be/14ktgvoH4Mc?si=yhSzpEDo5ut6s8eS&t=880

The best part about this is that the CEO insists that the agreement with the previous store owner is null (thus relieving him of the burden of paying 200k), and yet he also insists on keeping the Lego collection set and selling it. It's comical.

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.

I've personally never heard of consignment deals where the consignment store becomes the owners of the goods. Not once.

Back in college I used to make money flipping stuff on Ebay, and did that extensively. I did consignment for others, as well as sending stuff to others to sell.

This sounds illegal, and like a case of the store / new franchise owners trying to bully the consignors into submission.

Slightly confusingly, the article seems to be using the word "trespassed" incorrectly; I think they mean "charged with trespassing" both times? It's a bit confusing.

> People showed up with the contract in hand to retrieve it and were immediately thrown out and permanently trespassed.

> He was kicked out, trespassed, and had the police called on him. Multiple times.

The part 2 video where the police harass and falsely arrest ben is even more shocking.

This YouTube video covers it with much more detail, and (imo) more entertainment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wscQpkcwgNU

And people wonder why Luigi has so much support from the general public?

Can anyone explain WHY a 400M company would do this? This is just bonkers. They are destroying their reputation for $200k of legos???

It stuns me when I read about people investing in Lego in order to make money later, and in this case it was to pay for someone's college. That info is from the fundraising page that's trying to pay for the lawyers.

https://encyclopedia.uia.org/problem/anarcho-tyranny

putting aside that this deal went sour, which is very frustrating, i am curious how much they actually spent to buy all that lego, and how much they gained, if anything, over just directly saving the money.

Seems like a good reason to avoid ever transacting with this business.

Could he take them to small claims court one Lego set at a time, get a judgment against the business then go in with the sheriff and start taking stuff to cover the judgement?

This guy tried to resolve a legal dispute without a lawyer. Any competent business lawyer should have been able to straighten this out within days. He even tried to do process service himself, which nobody does. You pay a process server $100 or so for that.

There seems to be a lot of misinformation in the comments, I would assume because the linked article doesn't cover many of the developments.

The youtuber Reckless Ben has recently covered the story and spearheaded a campaign of "provocative journalism" against the store[0]. Regardless of whether you support the way in which he goes about things, his video explains the story in much greater detail, and enormously expands on the malpractice of Bricks and Minifigs and the local police department.

Here are some bulletpoints in case you do not care to watch Part 1 + Part 2:

- Bricks and Minifigs explicitly threatened both the previous owners of the store and the original owner of the collection with lengthy legal battles

- The owner of the collection tried going the legal route but was quoted prices that he couldn't afford, so youtube was his last resort

- Bricks and Minifigs CEO publicly admitted of having the collection, being aware of the issue, and not wanting to give it back, while at the same time trying to run PR campaigns denying the allegations.

- BAM leadership went out of its way to create legal trouble for Reckless Ben, involving the police and fabricating false evidence about him

- The local police went out of its way to legally stop Ben, arrest him without probable cause, try to plant Heroin on his car, and even *ended up swatting his house*, dislocating his shoulder.

- All of this while the police department illegally scrubbed any incriminating evidence from the bodycam recordings they were obligated to provide.

This is an *insane* story that doesn't get enough credit. It not only exposes the inefficacy of (parts of) the American justice system, but also the enormous level of corruption and abuse of power of the American police (and tangentially the Mormon community)

I really recommend watching both videos. I promise you it's even more insane than it sounds like.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wscQpkcwgNU

I read down to the part where they linked to the official announcement from the store. This blog's summary of the announcement is very different than the actual content of the announcement.

The company claims the consignor gave a written statement to a podcast that his collection was "moved offsite for security reasons". They also said they tried to locate his collection in the inventory but it's not there:

> A few days later, we became aware of the previous arrangement, and compared our inventory assessment to the limited documentation provided by the consignor. 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 significantly higher volume of the listed sets had sold over the course of the consignment deal prior to the store transition. The consignor also provided a written statement to a podcast that his collection was moved offsite for security reasons. Additional attempts to restore what we could with what was in our possession, was also declined, in writing.

This seems like a huge detail that is conspicuously missing from the drama reports on the subject. What's going on?

I know this is internet drama and we're supposed to assume the corporation is lying and the bloggers and podcasters are all telling the truth, but there's so many sketchy details in this story that I don't trust either side.

One of the guys involved even went to another person's house and sat outside for hours trying to serve them with lawsuit paperwork until the police were called, which is not a thing you do yourself. Especially in conflict with someone. That same person has a YouTube channel where they're posting hours long videos on the topic, so they have a lot of incentive to escalate everywhere.

I don't know what's going on here. I feel bad for the guy who lost some LEGO sets. I do not like the podcasters and bloggers milking him for content for their media channels.

I hope that they continue to sue until there's justice.

It's wild to me how willing people are to torch their company's reputation. If you've seen some of the videos and comments around this it really seems like the corporate owners, and possibly the new franchisee, are arguably, for lack of a better descriptio0n, egotistical bullies, the "yeah? sue me then" types. They've probably gone their entire life just being a-holes and not being held accountable. And now they're digging their heels in.

The facts and the law here are quite simple. Man consigns LEGO collection to the store. He has a contract. The new store owner still has that liability. The existence of a contract is in dispute. The franchisee's and corporate owner's positions seems to be that the contract is with the previous owner not the owner's store.

Well, if that's true, the LEGO collection still belongs to that previous owner and the new owner has simply stolen it. So their legal argument is ridiculous.

Allegedly that previous owner was basically kicked out of the store and denied the opportunity to take inventory so that owner probably has a case against corporate and the new owners as well.

There is no world in which this ends well for the company of the new store owner. And it's wild to me that they're sticking to their guns here. Beyond the legal issues, the reputational damage is massive. These stores are for LEGO collectors and they're screaming bloody murder. Plus ordinary people who hear about this story have an innate sense of fairness so immediately side with the people who've had their $200k LEGO collection effectively stolen.

Plus this now has so much publicity that there are any number of lawyers who will take on this case just for the publicity.

It's also funny that the Utah police who got involved when people went to corporate are basically just acting like corporate's security arm.

There should be class action lawsuits just from widespread recognition of corporate wrongdoing.

Bricks and Minifigs is a very popular birthday party destination for my kids peers. I will make sure to share this story with anyone considering to go there and allow them to form their own conclusions.

Here's a thread on Reddit from the original owner of the store:

https://old.reddit.com/r/lego/comments/1tos7p5/bricks_and_mi...

This seems like an easily arbitrated dispute. But I'm not privy to all the details and IANAL.

One of the saddest things about modern capitalism is that people stealing from businesses is criminalized and heavily punished but businesses stealing from people (eg. wage theft, illegal contracts, medicare/PPP fraud, and outright stealing like this case) is treated as a civil violation and almost impossible to prosecute.

The only cases of white collar crime I've seen get prosecuted is securities fraud and that's rich people stealing from other rich people.

For the alternate side, Bricks and Minifigs claims much of Mansell's inventory had been sold, or relocated by Mansell himself. The liability for any discrepancy in sales and his compensation is the responsibility of the franchisee with whom he sign the contract.

> 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 significantly higher volume of the listed sets had sold over the course of the consignment deal prior to the store transition. The consignor also provided a written statement to a podcast that his collection was moved offsite for security reasons. Additional attempts to restore what we could with what was in our possession, was also declined, in writing.

> BAM denies allegations that we “stole” this consignor’s collection, let alone a collection worth what has been claimed online. However, we remain willing to provide any appropriate assistance in recovering any and all portions of this collection or funds generated off of its sale to the original consignor and their family, through appropriate means.

> Serious claims require serious evidence. We have repeatedly asked for the original documents and undoctored recordings that support these accusations. Selective social media posts and misleading investigative-style videos are not a substitute for the complete records and legal agreements that govern the rights of all involved parties.

> If a legitimate claim exists, there are established legal and dispute-resolution processes to handle it fairly. Attempting to force a business outcome through public pressure, especially on unrelated stores and employees, is not a productive or fair path forward.

https://bricksandminifigs.com/blog/blog/2026/05/21/salem-ore...

I don't have first-hand corroboration of the facts, though I am surprised that the article favorable to Mansell did not simply publish the consignment agreement with the franchise owner.

Since it is done under guise of a corporation, there will be zero actual consequences for the individuals involved in the theft. Nor will there be any consequences for the officers involved in violating rights.

There really needs to be consequences for blatantly manipulating courts to waste money and delay judgement.

I’ve watched both videos by RecklessBen (Part 2 is on his patreon, and apparently will be made public when he has Part 3 ready)…

The videos are damning of the behavior by Brick and Minifigs, the two owners who took over the store in Kaiser, and both the Kaiser (Oregon) police for and American Force (Utah) police.

Brick and Minifigs both corporate and the owners who stole the legos, have consistently and thoroughly lied as well as treated Ben numerous times. He has recording of it. It’s all in his videos. He even got a the franchise agreement which states consignment is allowed. He even got a default judgement in small claims court, that caused the original location to permanently shutter its doors. He’s now trying to sue them in civil court, but can’t even serve the papers.

Ben has tried every legal channel, and been hit with at least trespass at every point. His AirBnB was raided, he was searched for three hours for heroin possession allegations, the police continuously and non-stop targeted him. They’ve issued warrants that are redacted so Ben doesn’t even know what he’s gotta defend against.

I’d really encourage folks to go watch the part 1 since it’s freely available on YouTube, but part 2 is where the Utah police seem to full throttle shit all over his civil rights to protect a Bricks and Minifigs, and the franchise owners, who stole $200k of legos from an 83 year old man.

If this all seems crazy, it’s because it absolutely is crazy. Ben does an absolutely incredible job, attempting to document everything and goes to huge lengths to do things the right way.

Isn't this why you guys have guns? What a story, how can people keep trying to do things the right way after all of that.

Adults ruined LEGO. There I said it.