Trouble In Lego-dise? Dennis Barger weighs in on the controversy ripping the Lego world apart

[00:00:00]is a milliondoll Lego franchise corporation trying to steal $200,000 worth of Legos. I'm going to tell you in this video.

[00:00:14]Hey everyone, I'm Dennis Barger, owner of Wonderorld Comics, Cosmic Pop Retro, and Dystopia. I have been playing with Legos for 45 years of my life. For the last 35 years, I've been selling Legos.

[00:00:30]Do you know why? Legos is one of the most nostalgic brands that you can play with and sell because everyone, boys and girls, played with Legos. And that's what brings us to right now. This gentleman, we're not going to mention names in this video. This gentleman had collected this large collection of Star Wars Legos. He did it with his son and together the two of them built this enormous collection of star wars Legos.

[00:01:03]But when the health issues started to pile up, they needed money rather than Legos. They took it to the largest franchise of Lego resailers, Bricks and Minifigs. We have two of them within 15 miles of where I'm at right now. These places are everywhere. And up until a month ago, they had a perfect stellar record in the community. It started about a month ago when one of the biggest LEGO YouTubers decided to test Bricks and Minifigs. He put a rare $1,000 Lego C3PO in a bin full of a whole bunch of junk to see if they would spot it and make him a legitimate offer. Shockingly, nobody offered him anywhere near where that Lego should have been offered from any of this franchise. But if that wasn't bad enough, then you have this collection that comes in. Let me explain the structure of this company. This company is Bricks and Minigs. It's a $400 million corporation and they franchise out to 350 separate owners. Every one of those 350 owners pays a fee to the corporation to be able to use that name and sell on behalf of themselves, but kicking a lot of money upstairs because of the franchise. A lot of people don't understand franchises.

[00:02:34]Almost every McDonald's you've ever eaten at is not owned by Ronald McDonald. It's owned by little families that have invested their money in being a McDonald franchisee. Same thing with Bricks and Minifigs. Everybody on YouTube is calling this the 200K collection when in fact most people are now in the 100 to 110K range on what this collection was actually worth.

[00:03:02]Apparently, the owner of this particular franchise went a foul with corporate and corporate said, "We're sending in somebody to fix your store." And when that guy showed up to fix the store, well, he said, "We're going to escort you out and we're going to change the locks." She is on video saying that she was concerned that the owner of the consignment be paid what that owner was owed but wasn't allowed to by the person sent by the corporation to take over that franchise. This is the moment where it goes ary. I've watched hundreds of hours of content based on just this topic and I'll tell you the one thing everyone is missing.

[00:03:48]Why did corporate take the franchise?

[00:03:50]And I want to tell you what my theory actually is. Bricks and Minifigs uses a very tight and rigid inventory control system. And at some point when this consignment started, $100,000 or more worth of inventory got inputed into that system. Corporate would have seen that $100,000 increase in inventory. And as it slowly sold away, they would see transactions for 500, a thousand, yet they were only getting paid a percent of the percent that that franchise owner was making.

[00:04:30]The majority of that went to the original owners of the collection. And I think, and this is just my theory, that corporate saw all of this money fluxing into that franchise and saw several of these transactions going out of the franchise, but they weren't making the percent that they saw come through on the balance sheets because it was a consignment. And 65% of every one of those sales went to the family of the original owner. Right now, corporate is saying, "Well, we had to take that away from her because she was not doing things the way they wanted it done." She was apparently offering consignment, and they say they've never offered consignment except for the fact that in the 2003 franchise agreement, it stipulates that they can do consignment.

[00:05:22]This blows the corporates argument completely out of the water. But like I said, all the YouTubers are chasing that. Nobody is looking at what was the trigger for them to come in and try to take this Lego collection. I think it was because they get 7% of every transaction that comes out of that franchise. Yet, a consignment deal only gives them 7% of what the franchisee accepts from that sale. So, if they sold $1,000 worth of this gentleman's Legos, they would get $350 and kick 7% of that $ 350 up to corporate and the family would get 650.

[00:06:09]Nobody is talking about what triggered corporate to come in and even care about this. It's a $400 million corporation and they somehow decided to ruin and torpedo their entire brand to take $100,000 $50,000 worth of Legos. So why is that important? Well, big corporations have bean counters. Bean counters count every percent. So, if you see a giant influx of inventory going into one little store and all of the sudden you start seeing big amounts of money selling from that location, you're going to count every penny that was supposed to be given to you. And when you see that money not there, you start asking questions. But at a certain point, this company has been accused of having sort of a bait and switch operation. They sell a franchise to somebody who truly loves and is passionate about Legos. And then if that franchise becomes too profitable for them to only make 7%, they look for reasons that they can come in and do a corporate takeover. There's at least one other person that says the exact same people who were sent to this one Lego store also were sent to their store to take it over. Where there's smoke, there's fire. And there's something fishy about the corporate structure of bricks and mini figs. But there are definitely 300 plus franchisee owners that have passionate love for Legos.

[00:07:52]They should not be painted by the same brush as the corporate structure and the couple people that have been sent in to take over this franchise and deprive the family of what's rightfully theirs. I never charge 35% for a consignment. I do 10, 15, 20% for my consignment. But here's why they might have charged that extra percentage for this particular consignment. Well, first of all, 35% minus 7% they know they have to kick upstairs leaves 28%.

[00:08:28]Well, if somebody uses their credit card, well, there you're going to lose another 3%.

[00:08:34]That leaves 25% to the franchisee owner when everything is said and done. That's the same as if you sent it off to an auction house and they take 10%. You bake that in to the total. I think that's what happened and that's why the percent was 35% on the commission. I honestly think that a company that might have ill intentions of selling these franchises, planting these seeds all across the country and waiting for which one was going to be the strongest, most profitable and then figuring out a way to come in, move in, take over after the franchisee owner has given them percent after percent of franchise fee. I think if this gets uncovered, this is a bigger scandal than all of the other scandals that have happened with this corporation. The basis for this corporation is they built a brand name, Bricks and Minifigs. The meat of this entire issue is the company was set up to sell franchises.

[00:09:40]Every person that signs up for a franchise has to pay them a franchise fee. That's to put the name on the outside of the building. That's to get all of the systems in place to make them profitable that this corporation has built. And then, like I said, this is my assumption.

[00:10:02]That's where it should end. They should be happy that every one of these franchises is making money and kicking the percent upstairs. However, if my assumption is correct, they are having these people pay these franchise fees, sign these long-term leases, and then all of the sudden when they see one here that has a potential to make even more money, they go in and they snatch it from the owner and take it over for themselves. And if they've done this now twice, and if there's more of these that come out, this is a predatory practice of making people plant your seeds for you and then coming in to chop down the tree when it gets big enough. It's a twoprong strategy if I'm correct. You sell the franchise. You see which ones are mostly benefiting. And when you see something turn upside down, like this one franchise that takes in $100,000 worth of inventory, that's when you strike and you send in your corporate goon squad to take it over and own a 100% of what's left and forget about any consignment deal because consignment only makes you a small percent. You want to turn and burn and make the full 100% off of paying way less for that collection. But where did this backfire? Well, right now, Bricks and Mini Fig Corporation is worth $400 million.

[00:11:31]That's collecting franchise fees. That's collecting your 7%. That's building newer, better stores every single year.

[00:11:40]And now all of that goodwill is gone.

[00:11:45]Just recently, Reckless Ben went on YouTube and said, "I am being sued, and I am no longer allowed to say the Mystery Corporation's name. And if I do say it, this $1.3 million lawsuit against me and the owners of the collection will be in default, and I will be on the hook for all of that."

[00:12:12]This is not how you address things in a corporate structure that you helped ruin.

[00:12:20]You just silenced Reckless Ben, who cost you way more money than you were ever going to lose if you just paid it out.

[00:12:31]But now there's something called the Stryen effect. And a month ago, I would have never made a video about bricks and mini figs. You silenced Reckless Ben.

[00:12:43]You didn't silence me. I am going to be the voice for him and the family that you screwed out of their Legos. We are all going to amplify this story here on YouTube until you do the right thing or you go away peacefully. Guys, I'm just Dennis Barker. Lego enthusiast and Lego seller celebrating the past and living for the future.