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artnanika 16 minutes ago [-]
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.
gkoberger 5 minutes ago [-]
I'm really confused by this. 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.
A_D_E_P_T 1 minutes ago [-]
It's not that hard to understand.
A man gave the store merchandise on consignment, signed a contract with the store manager.
The manager lost control of the store to corporate. The goods were still there, still on display and being sold.
Corporate says, "this is mine now" and refuses to honor the contract. "It wasn't our name on it, says right here that the previous store manager signed this, and she's no longer with us." They sell the goods and keep all of the revenue, rather than just their 10% share.
It seems like theft, but it's a very common civil contract dispute. The side with possession and deeper pockets is the side with the leverage, sadly!
yesod 2 minutes ago [-]
From what I can see: Franchisee entered into a consignment agreement to sell the lego. They were not allowed to do that, so corporate took over the franchise.
BUT rather than unwind the agreement and return the lego, they just kept it. Argued for it to be dealt with legally. It was, they lost, so they closed down the store rather than return the lego.
The part 2 video where the police harass and falsely arrest ben is even more shocking.
xmprt 9 minutes ago [-]
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.
A_D_E_P_T 5 minutes ago [-]
Federal and most state civil courts are pay-to-win, too. They have absolutely nothing to do with justice. The only time "the little guy" wins anything is when the lawyers stand to make a windfall in contingency fees.
(...See, e.g., authors vs. Anthropic. The most prolific author might make somewhere in the low six figures, the average author is gonna make ~$10k, and the lawyers representing the class asked for $300M!)
tunesmith 11 minutes ago [-]
There should be class action lawsuits just from widespread recognition of corporate wrongdoing.
quietsegfault 5 minutes ago [-]
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.
lvl155 6 minutes ago [-]
Adults ruined LEGO. There I said it.
plagiarist 19 minutes ago [-]
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.
barelysapient 12 minutes ago [-]
That remains to be seen. Individuals absolutely can be held to account. Corporations are not pass to behave illegally.
dylan604 10 minutes ago [-]
Someone should let bigTech know about this
jimjimjim 4 minutes ago [-]
And yet, reality seems to disagree with you
vasco 18 minutes ago [-]
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.
underlipton 9 minutes ago [-]
That is the gist of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14ktgvoH4Mc's take-away (though with great pains taken to convey that he doesn't condone it). Extralegal solutions become more and more attractive the less and less just the "justice" system appears; whether it's right or not, that's just the truth of it, and I suppose we're lucky that only one of the three recent "get 'em back" instances that come to my mind involve shooting someone dead in the street. (The other two being the UNH CEO's execution and the burning of that paper warehouse.)
The novel maneuvers "Reckless" Ben Schneider took were... amusing, at the very least.
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.
A man gave the store merchandise on consignment, signed a contract with the store manager.
The manager lost control of the store to corporate. The goods were still there, still on display and being sold.
Corporate says, "this is mine now" and refuses to honor the contract. "It wasn't our name on it, says right here that the previous store manager signed this, and she's no longer with us." They sell the goods and keep all of the revenue, rather than just their 10% share.
It seems like theft, but it's a very common civil contract dispute. The side with possession and deeper pockets is the side with the leverage, sadly!
BUT rather than unwind the agreement and return the lego, they just kept it. Argued for it to be dealt with legally. It was, they lost, so they closed down the store rather than return the lego.
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.
(...See, e.g., authors vs. Anthropic. The most prolific author might make somewhere in the low six figures, the average author is gonna make ~$10k, and the lawyers representing the class asked for $300M!)
There really needs to be consequences for blatantly manipulating courts to waste money and delay judgement.
The novel maneuvers "Reckless" Ben Schneider took were... amusing, at the very least.