20 ms·

Corporate is also claiming that they don't allow stores to take on consignment deals, contrary to their franchise agreement explicitly allowing franchise owners

Corporate is also claiming that they don't allow stores to take on consignment deals, contrary to their franchise agreement explicitly allowing franchise owners to take on consignment deals.

askbjoernhansen 4mo ago
The (former) franchise owner shared their contract with BAM that explicitly allowed consignments.
- SV_BubbleTime 4mo ago
  I’ll make sure if I’m ever listing anything through a store via consignment that I remember to ask if the contract with their their franchiser allows consignment in the event that the franchisees folds. You know, typical stuff.
munk-a 4mo ago
I have absolutely no doubts a court would consider it impossible to transfer goods under consignment to a different entity free of the burden of the consignment contract. So the corporation trying to reach into the franchise to grab these goods without honoring the contract is absolute BS and they should be dragged through the mud over it. The unfortunate loophole here is that, potentially, by shutting down that franchise in a bankruptcy the corporation may end up being preferred for being made whole on debts relative to the consigner. Bankruptcy is complicated so while I am pretty sure any remaining goods from the consignment would be returned to the original owner the proceeds from sales that were successfully made might end up in the pocket of the corporation. Personally, I absolutely loathe consignment. It is an incredibly complex agreement with a lot of weird edge cases about deprecation of goods and the duty to seek a good price that get complex quick. If you have goods like this and can find a store that will buy your goods in bulk you should be very careful in considering how much you care about the price difference between that bulk price and the percentage they list for consignment. A single transaction is usually much cleaner and easier for both sides and in this case (trying to pay for medical costs) having the money immediately can be quite attractive.
- throwaway85825 4mo ago
  In bankrupty a court appointed liquidator can seize assets and sell them to repay creditors. Of course none of this happened here.
  - jimnotgym 4mo ago
    They can't sieze consignment stock though?!?
    - throwaway85825 4mo ago
      The court can do almost anything. Its happened before. https://www.cozen.com/news-resources/publications/2020/is-your-consignment-really-a-consignment https://www.cozen.com/news-resources/publications/2020/is-yo...
    - munk-a 4mo ago
      "Can't" is a really bad word to use and I am not certain if "they" here are the corporation or the liquidator. If you're talking about the corporation I think that any sensible neutral party would probably come down on the side that the corporation has no entitlement to those goods. If you're talking about the liquidator then the goods were held by the franchise so if it went through bankruptcy those goods would be under consideration by the steward - I think they'd usually find that the original owner should be entitled to the goods since they're relatively non-fungible. The proceeds from sold goods are likely a more complicated answer since money is fungible and divisible. I could accept that there would be scenarios where a steward would think that the corporation should recover a portion of the proceeds.
      - mindslight 4mo ago
        > If you're talking about the liquidator then the goods were held by the franchise so if it went through bankruptcy those goods would be under consideration by the steward - I think they'd usually find that the original owner should be entitled to the goods since they're relatively non-fungible. IANAA, but I'd say the situation is that while the goods are possessed by the franchise, but they are not owned by the franchise. Ownership title doesn't change until they're sold by the franchise to a buyer. I could see a scenario in which the franchise contract says that BAM can automatically liquidate the franchise (and how else did BAM get immediate control of the store?), and BAM then says they've executed on that consignment contract (at perhaps not reasonable prices). But without a very well-documented paper trail that this is what they did, including actually paying the consignor the (low) proceeds of the sales, it would seem that the only other possibility here is some kind of criminal conversion. Which points back to all of the discussion about consignment dynamics really being a red herring. The problem is a criminal conspiracy including by the police themselves, for whatever reasons that might be.
mcv 4mo ago
Corporate is lying a lot, and is pretty clearly guilty of theft at the very least. The bigger problems I see here are: 1. You can't really sure large corporations like Bricks & Minifigs. They've got deeper pockets and can drag it out until you go bankrupt. There's no good legal recourse for this, meaning larger corporations can basically do whatever they want and ignore the law, as long as they only hurt people smaller than them. 2. The police refuses to treat this as the theft it is. There have been several confrontations with police that give a very strong impression that the police is corrupt and protecting the Bricks & Minifigs and its crimes. 3. Reckless Ben's questionable shenanigans seem to be the only way to fight for justice in unequal situations like this. The offending franchise is now closed. The victim still doesn't have his lego or money back, but thanks to Ben, Bricks & Minifigs is now also feeling the pain. Without that, they would have simply gotten away with it. Chance are they've done stuff like this before. Also interesting are some of the stunts Ben has pulled: 1. Confronted with the claim that it's a civil matter, he tried turning it into a crime, by holding a raffle for one of the stolen sets that's still legally owned by the victim. The winner of the raffle went to pick it up, and was refused, making it theft from a lottery, which is a crime that the police is supposedly required to investigate (they didn't). 2. Several people buy $10k worth of lego from the victim and claim it from the shop. When they're refused, they go to small claims court, which is now possible because it's only $10k. Bricks & Minifigs ignored it and closed the shop instead. There are default judgements in favour of the people helping the victim, but there doesn't seem to be any way to enforce them. 3. He went out of his way to get the company to sue him, which is apparently better than him suing the company? I'm not sure why. But Bricks & Minifigs didn't bite. The most effective thing has simply been the PR. The public attention may finally get law enforcement to investigate and punish Bricks & Minifigs. Or at least the broader public will know and avoid Bricks & Minifigs, so at least the company gets punished financially. That won't help the victim, but at least it would be some measure of justice.
- sarchertech 4mo ago
  >you can’t really sue You definitely can sue a large corporation and win or force a settlement. The “we’ll drag this out until you are bankrupt” thing is more bluff than reality. Courts do not react favorably to that. Especially when they have direct evidence of those threats. A corporation may have a litigation cost advantage, but they’re still going to spend more than the $180k or whatever that they owed to execute this drag it out forever strategy.
ProofHouse 4mo ago
Corporate is lying all over the place. If you're following the story, you can see all the contradictions, let alone the video that came out today that literally needs a federal FBI investigation and internal affairs looking into the police department and the Church of Mormon corruption, which is shockingly overt in the video just released. Like I'm talking anti-American level of full city or state takeover corruption.

Corporate is also claiming that they don't allow stores to take on consignment deals, contrary to their franchise agreement explicitly allowing franchise owners to take on consignment deals.

askbjoernhansen 4mo ago

The (former) franchise owner shared their contract with BAM that explicitly allowed consignments.

SV_BubbleTime 4mo ago
I’ll make sure if I’m ever listing anything through a store via consignment that I remember to ask if the contract with their their franchiser allows consignment in the event that the franchisees folds. You know, typical stuff.

munk-a 4mo ago

I have absolutely no doubts a court would consider it impossible to transfer goods under consignment to a different entity free of the burden of the consignment contract. So the corporation trying to reach into the franchise to grab these goods without honoring the contract is absolute BS and they should be dragged through the mud over it. The unfortunate loophole here is that, potentially, by shutting down that franchise in a bankruptcy the corporation may end up being preferred for being made whole on debts relative to the consigner. Bankruptcy is complicated so while I am pretty sure any remaining goods from the consignment would be returned to the original owner the proceeds from sales that were successfully made might end up in the pocket of the corporation. Personally, I absolutely loathe consignment. It is an incredibly complex agreement with a lot of weird edge cases about deprecation of goods and the duty to seek a good price that get complex quick. If you have goods like this and can find a store that will buy your goods in bulk you should be very careful in considering how much you care about the price difference between that bulk price and the percentage they list for consignment. A single transaction is usually much cleaner and easier for both sides and in this case (trying to pay for medical costs) having the money immediately can be quite attractive.

throwaway85825 4mo ago
In bankrupty a court appointed liquidator can seize assets and sell them to repay creditors. Of course none of this happened here.
- jimnotgym 4mo ago
  They can't sieze consignment stock though?!?
  - throwaway85825 4mo ago
    The court can do almost anything. Its happened before. https://www.cozen.com/news-resources/publications/2020/is-your-consignment-really-a-consignment https://www.cozen.com/news-resources/publications/2020/is-yo...
  - munk-a 4mo ago
    "Can't" is a really bad word to use and I am not certain if "they" here are the corporation or the liquidator. If you're talking about the corporation I think that any sensible neutral party would probably come down on the side that the corporation has no entitlement to those goods. If you're talking about the liquidator then the goods were held by the franchise so if it went through bankruptcy those goods would be under consideration by the steward - I think they'd usually find that the original owner should be entitled to the goods since they're relatively non-fungible. The proceeds from sold goods are likely a more complicated answer since money is fungible and divisible. I could accept that there would be scenarios where a steward would think that the corporation should recover a portion of the proceeds.
    - mindslight 4mo ago
      > If you're talking about the liquidator then the goods were held by the franchise so if it went through bankruptcy those goods would be under consideration by the steward - I think they'd usually find that the original owner should be entitled to the goods since they're relatively non-fungible. IANAA, but I'd say the situation is that while the goods are possessed by the franchise, but they are not owned by the franchise. Ownership title doesn't change until they're sold by the franchise to a buyer. I could see a scenario in which the franchise contract says that BAM can automatically liquidate the franchise (and how else did BAM get immediate control of the store?), and BAM then says they've executed on that consignment contract (at perhaps not reasonable prices). But without a very well-documented paper trail that this is what they did, including actually paying the consignor the (low) proceeds of the sales, it would seem that the only other possibility here is some kind of criminal conversion. Which points back to all of the discussion about consignment dynamics really being a red herring. The problem is a criminal conspiracy including by the police themselves, for whatever reasons that might be.

mcv 4mo ago

Corporate is lying a lot, and is pretty clearly guilty of theft at the very least. The bigger problems I see here are: 1. You can't really sure large corporations like Bricks & Minifigs. They've got deeper pockets and can drag it out until you go bankrupt. There's no good legal recourse for this, meaning larger corporations can basically do whatever they want and ignore the law, as long as they only hurt people smaller than them. 2. The police refuses to treat this as the theft it is. There have been several confrontations with police that give a very strong impression that the police is corrupt and protecting the Bricks & Minifigs and its crimes. 3. Reckless Ben's questionable shenanigans seem to be the only way to fight for justice in unequal situations like this. The offending franchise is now closed. The victim still doesn't have his lego or money back, but thanks to Ben, Bricks & Minifigs is now also feeling the pain. Without that, they would have simply gotten away with it. Chance are they've done stuff like this before. Also interesting are some of the stunts Ben has pulled: 1. Confronted with the claim that it's a civil matter, he tried turning it into a crime, by holding a raffle for one of the stolen sets that's still legally owned by the victim. The winner of the raffle went to pick it up, and was refused, making it theft from a lottery, which is a crime that the police is supposedly required to investigate (they didn't). 2. Several people buy $10k worth of lego from the victim and claim it from the shop. When they're refused, they go to small claims court, which is now possible because it's only $10k. Bricks & Minifigs ignored it and closed the shop instead. There are default judgements in favour of the people helping the victim, but there doesn't seem to be any way to enforce them. 3. He went out of his way to get the company to sue him, which is apparently better than him suing the company? I'm not sure why. But Bricks & Minifigs didn't bite. The most effective thing has simply been the PR. The public attention may finally get law enforcement to investigate and punish Bricks & Minifigs. Or at least the broader public will know and avoid Bricks & Minifigs, so at least the company gets punished financially. That won't help the victim, but at least it would be some measure of justice.

sarchertech 4mo ago
>you can’t really sue You definitely can sue a large corporation and win or force a settlement. The “we’ll drag this out until you are bankrupt” thing is more bluff than reality. Courts do not react favorably to that. Especially when they have direct evidence of those threats. A corporation may have a litigation cost advantage, but they’re still going to spend more than the $180k or whatever that they owed to execute this drag it out forever strategy.

ProofHouse 4mo ago

Corporate is lying all over the place. If you're following the story, you can see all the contradictions, let alone the video that came out today that literally needs a federal FBI investigation and internal affairs looking into the police department and the Church of Mormon corruption, which is shockingly overt in the video just released. Like I'm talking anti-American level of full city or state takeover corruption.