Bricks and Minifigs Youtube Drama over Legos
Posted: June 5 26, 9:19 am
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.
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.