Lego

[Zonda_]

Did it better in the 80s

I actually had the shell race car as a child IMG_9128.jpeg

Still have it!

[Simon]

Not sure where this belongs.

[DeskJockey]

Eldest asked for a big Lego set as a confirmation present, and gave me a list.

He's currently building this


There are a *lot* of bricks.

[Matty]

As it's Lego related, anyone watching this drama unfold between "Bricks and Minifigs" and YT'er called Reckless Ben in the states over a $200,000 Lego collection?

[DeskJockey]

No. What's the beef?

[Matty]

In short:

- Bloke gives $200k Lego collection to a franchised B&M store to sell for him.
- Bloke dies. Store changes franchisee
- Son of bloke goes to get Lego sets back. Store refuses, claiming not to know anything about it, calls cops on son and gets him banned.
- Son goes to guy called Reckless Ben, a TY'er, to get his Lego back.
- RB kicks up a storm, owners of B&M don't like it and go full scorched earth, getting RB arrested on various fake charges, sending Patreon court letters to blacklist RB

Patreon CEO makes a YT vid about it, saying "B&M can sue us" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36jxNeV5L1Q

Then someone hacked into the US Police Department and released the unredacted bodycam footage of all the interactions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih2XwNN0aVY

[DeskJockey]

Sounds very American. Did dead bloke really hand over a collection like that without getting as much as a receipt? Sounds iffy.

[speedingfine]

In short:

- Bloke gives $200k Lego collection to a franchised B&M store to sell for him.
- Bloke dies. Store changes franchisee
- Son of bloke goes to get Lego sets back. Store refuses, claiming not to know anything about it, calls cops on son and gets him banned.
- Son goes to guy called Reckless Ben, a TY'er, to get his Lego back.
- RB kicks up a storm, owners of B&M don't like it and go full scorched earth, getting RB arrested on various fake charges, sending Patreon court letters to blacklist RB

Patreon CEO makes a YT vid about it, saying "B&M can sue us" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36jxNeV5L1Q

Then someone hacked into the US Police Department and released the unredacted bodycam footage of all the interactions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih2XwNN0aVY

The hacked bodycam footage is a new one on me

I found this video helpful until I got bored



Btw thanks for the Interstellar Lego vid Simon, excellent stuff

[Matty]

I found this video helpful until I got bored

Honestly, 2x speed YT has been my default for years now. I've got too many things to watch and not enough time!

[Mito Man]

I’ve watched some of the Reckless Ben video from 5 days ago. Putting the Lego theft aside it’s mental how corrupt the US cops are. Not even sure what’s in it for them and why they seem adamant to protect the Lego store owners. Really is an ass backwards place.

Edit - also thought this was some small time Lego reseller but they have 240 stores! $200,000 must be peanuts for them to destroy their reputation over it. Literally picking up pennies in front of a train.

[DeskJockey]

12060 pieces

https://www.lego.com/en-gb/product/sagr ... ilia-21065

Biggest set by piece count, and apparently overall.

[Jobbo]

I hope the instructions are missing the final few pages so it is never finished.

[DeskJockey]

That would be very apt.

[jamcg]

[RobYob]

[240PP]

[Jobbo]

In short:

- Bloke gives $200k Lego collection to a franchised B&M store to sell for him.
- Bloke dies. Store changes franchisee
- Son of bloke goes to get Lego sets back. Store refuses, claiming not to know anything about it, calls cops on son and gets him banned.
- Son goes to guy called Reckless Ben, a TY'er, to get his Lego back.
- RB kicks up a storm, owners of B&M don't like it and go full scorched earth, getting RB arrested on various fake charges, sending Patreon court letters to blacklist RB

Patreon CEO makes a YT vid about it, saying "B&M can sue us" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36jxNeV5L1Q

Then someone hacked into the US Police Department and released the unredacted bodycam footage of all the interactions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih2XwNN0aVY

It's on the BBC now: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39yn3r32yko

Frankly Ben Schneider is a cnut. His campaign has destroyed the business of the new franchisee who have nothing to do with the dispute. The party which took in the collection on consignment is entirely to blame, and they were again a franchisee so Bricks & Minifigs are not liable. The victim should never have allowed such a valuable collection to be taken on consignment; basically they handed over goods to someone who seems to have been effectively insolvent so even if the collection had been sold with receipts, he almost certainly wouldn't have received the money. They've already received some money from the $52,000 of sales, and more than double their optimistic estimate of the total value of the collection has been raised in donations. Which is nice for the chap who has suffered a financial loss; I hope they give the balance to the new franchisee who was unfairly targeted.

[Matty]

Yeah there's a lot of collateral damage here. Coffeezilla has done a lot of digging into this, and there's lots of people at fault. Ben, the original franchise owners, plus B&M....although B&M essentially could have dealt with this so much better.

[Jobbo]

God, I am absolutely not watching a 55 minute video by a Youtuber who could be just as bad as Ben I'm afraid

[RobYob]

@Jobbo Coffeezilla is top tier.

No-one is blameless but the new franchisee's suspicious rental truck turning up at the late night store takeover for me points the majority at them for me. But B&M is in need of massive PR rehabilitation at this point. Or as it's the internet it'll be back to normal in six months.

Also watch Coffeezilla's expose on Valve's very much not talked about enough skin gambling/money laundering shenanigans.