In November 2023, Ed Mansell — an 83-year-old collector in declining health — consigned his life's collection of Star Wars LEGO sets to a Bricks & Minifigs franchise store in Keizer, Oregon. The deal was simple: the store would sell the sets, split the proceeds, and the collection remained Mansell's property until the moment of sale.

For about a year, it worked. Mansell received monthly payments totalling around $21,000.

Then, in November 2024, everything changed. The franchise owners — Chrystal Law-Gorman and Benjamin Gorman — informed corporate that the store was insolvent. Bricks & Minifigs corporate (BAM Franchising) terminated their contract and transferred ownership to new operators Brandon Best and Joshua Johnson. The transition allegedly happened overnight, with video evidence showing a U-Haul truck arriving at the storefront.

Mansell's remaining collection — the inventory that hadn't sold — was still inside. And the new operators reportedly said they had no knowledge of the consignment agreement.

What followed was a year of unanswered calls, missed payments, and a family being told their only option was to take it up with people who no longer owned the store.

Then Reckless Ben found out about it.

Bricks & Minifigs has a defensible legal position, and it's worth taking seriously. The consignment agreement was made with the franchisee — not with corporate. Corporate didn't sign it, didn't approve it, and arguably didn't know about the full inventory. When the franchisee defaulted, BAM exercised its contractual right to terminate and transfer. Standard franchise procedure.

But "legally defensible" and "right" are not the same thing. Coffeezilla's investigation found a Google Docs spreadsheet — owned by a BAM corporate account — containing the full Mansell inventory. The McNeff brothers claimed on camera they had no knowledge of the collection. That spreadsheet has been sitting there since 2024.

The company's handling of the PR crisis has been, by almost any measure, catastrophic. Four blog posts, a lawsuit against a YouTuber, a legal threat to Patreon, and a CEO livestream that made things worse. For a dispute that might have been resolved for $50,000–$80,000, BAM has arguably cost itself its entire national reputation.