When people think of Bricks & Minifigs®, they think of families and children, and a shared love for building something together. They don’t think of manufactured claims, legal battles, zealous online profiteers, viral mischaracterizations, sensationalization, and heated disagreements.
Seeing a father and his family at the center of a dispute regarding an unauthorized consignment is heartbreaking. We understand why people might initially react with suspicion online. The headline, although false, stating BAM® “stole an old man’s life savings” would make anyone curious. However, there is always more to the story.
While our initial responses focused on legal defenses that unfortunately take time and are ongoing, and because we as an entire brand are now forced to process a massive wave of online chaos, we feel the online community deserves a clear response to customer inquiries and the hopeful resolution of an isolated and former Franchisee’s private dispute.
We embrace self-reflection, but champion the unfiltered truth. We want to be entirely transparent about what happened and what we are doing to fix it so a situation like this never happens again.
At BAM Franchising, Inc. (the Franchisor for the Bricks & Minifigs brand), our community is built on trust, passion, and a shared love for creativity. Over the last several weeks, a deeply distressing and manufactured narrative has circulated online regarding our Salem, Oregon location. This article seeks to establish the truth of the situation publicly.
Executive Summary
The public narrative surrounding Bricks & Minifigs claims that corporate leadership and our new Salem franchisees knowingly “stole” a $100,000 to $200,000 LEGO® collection from an elderly collector and his family. This is not true. The actual origin of this dispute lies in an unauthorized, local consignment arrangement between an independent former franchisee of the Salem store and the Mansell family. When BAM corporate repossessed the store due to the former owner’s financial defaults and other breaches, BAM was unaware of any unauthorized and undisclosed consignment arrangement, and was not a party to such. In fact, the collection was not even located in the store based on our investigation. No credible evidence to the contrary has been found, including from Mr. Mansell.
However, we are hopeful the individuals involved in this private dispute can resolve such among themselves, which we support. Our goal is to ensure this grandfather and his family are not left “out” or penalized for a localized failure. After taking over the store, we discovered a small number of sets (valued between $2,000 and $5,000) that could possibly be related to Mr. Mansell’s collection based on the limited information we received. We offered to return these items to the Mansell family though BAM had no legal obligation to do so, but it was refused. However, BAM’s past offers to assist in resolving this third party dispute still stand today, including that we are willing to work with both of them to try to locate any remaining items (though most appear to have been sold prior to BAM’s repossession of the store).
We refuse to let a private legal battle obscure our core values. Moving forward, we are implementing more rigorous record keeping, inventory management, and more transparency in our buy, sell, and trade process, and de-escalation training with corporate and franchisees, and their staff.
Claims We’ve Seen Online
What is True
- A family is caught in the middle: The Mansell family entered into a consignment agreement with the former Salem Franchisee, Chrystal Law/Gorman, unlawfully, and the family allegedly has not been paid or made whole by her, the former store owner.
- Corporate lawfully repossessed a defaulting store: BAM Corporate repossessed the Salem location because the previous independent owner had stopped making payments on the purchase of the location, had not been paying royalties for multiple months and owed additional tens of thousands in back pay for unpaid expenses on her behalf.
- BAM found a small portion of inventory and offered it back, though it may not have been Mr. Mansell’s: Our incoming team found a small remnant of sets (estimated between $2,000 and $5,000) that appeared to be similar to the sets consigned. We set them aside and offered them to Mansell as a courtesy. The offer still stands.
- Security issues for the collection: On a podcast in 2025, Mr. Mansell shared that the Salem store had been broken into several times during the period she had his collection, raising serious questions about security for the inventory.
- The collection was moved offsite: In a separate written statement, Mr. Mansell acknowledged that Law/Gorman had removed sets from the store to an “offsite secure location” and that customers had to buy them first before they would be retrieved from storage. BAM corporate never took possession of, or had access to, this offsite storage facility.
- The former franchisee had been selling the collection for over a year:
- A recent audit of Point Of Sale (POS) system records show that over $50,000 worth of similar inventory was sold by Law/Gorman during that time period.
- We must tighten our franchise rules: This situation proves that we cannot simply assume every local Franchisee is following protocol. We will reinforce existing prohibitions on store-level side deals.
- Bricks & Minifigs specifically trains owners NOT to offer consignment:
- The franchise agreement states “…you agree that your Store will use and/or offer only services, products and merchandise, as set forth in the Operations Manual or as otherwise approved by us and as may be periodically modified by us in our sole discretion.” The 2023 Owners Operations Manual, which the former franchisee was bound to, states “Make sure […] your business ONLY buys, we DO NOT lend, loan, consign or pawn on any product that comes in.”
What is False
- Corporate took on the consignment liability: We acknowledge a Corporate support employee verbally said the new owner would “take all that consignment liability” when store ownership changed hands. The employee wasn’t making any formal agreement or committing the company legally. The statement’s intention was that any consignment inventory in the store would go back to its rightful owner, not that we were taking any agreements on ourselves. Our approach from that start has been simple: any inventory that doesn’t belong to us should go back to its rightful owner.
- BAM Corporate or the new franchisees “stole” a $100k–$200k collection: Neither corporate nor the incoming owners (Josh Johnson and Brandon Best) ever took, sold, or concealed this collection. Detailed inventory logs evidence that any collector items were already missing before we ever stepped foot inside.
- The collection was worth $200,000: While viral headlines use the $100,000 to $200,000 figure, the only documentation provided by the family months later was a spreadsheet detailing a collection worth somewhere in the range of $60,000 – $80,000.
- We were given records and documentation: Despite multiple requests, we never received verifiable copies of the signed contract, receipts of what had been paid to the Mansells, or a full true up of the inventory list.
- The store closed due to a lawsuit: The Salem store did not close because of a lost a legal case. It closed temporarily because our staff—including local teenagers—faced severe real-world safety hazards, targeted in-person stalking, and explicit bomb threats driven by viral videos.
What is Unknown
- The actual fate of the missing sets: While the online campaign disparages corporate, the actual evidence strongly indicates that most of the sets were sold by Law/Gorman, and any remaining inventory was stored offsite prior to BAM’s repossession of the store, regarding which BAM has never had knowledge of, control over, or access to.
Standing Together: Defending Our Franchisees, Model, and Our Beloved Community
While we are completely willing to look in the mirror, tighten our business practices, and improve our corporate oversight, we must also draw a hard line against the aggressive, lawless bullying that has targeted our brand.
Bricks & Minifigs is not a faceless, monolithic conglomerate. We are a network of over 300 locations across the United States and Canada, almost entirely owned and operated by local families, moms and dads, and passionate members of the LEGO community. These franchisees invest themselves and savings into building joyful environments for children and collectors.
Over the last several months, our ecosystem has been subjected to a vicious and unlawful campaign of disparagement and harassment. Content creators dropped sensationalized videos engineered entirely for clicks, views, and monthly subscriptions. Other online commentators blindly repeated these false accusations as absolute truth, without reaching out to Bricks & Minifigs for a statement, a comment, or consideration of the truth.
As a direct result of this reckless approach common in internet culture, innocent people have faced real-world trauma:
- Local small-business owners who have absolutely nothing to do with the Salem store have had their livelihoods threatened and their characters and reputations assassinated online through coordinated review bombing and negative comments, messages, emails, and phone calls.
- Teenage employees working their first retail jobs have been cornered, recorded, and aggressively harassed.
- Private families have had content creators show up at their residences in disguises, leak personal information, stalk their neighborhoods, and compromise the safety of their homes.
- Our community spaces have been disrupted by coordinated bomb threats and safety hazards.
This is not advocacy. This is not consumer protection. It is targeted harassment and monetization of conflict negatively affecting tens of thousands of owners and customers across our stores. We will not be bullied into silence, nor will we allow online mobs to destroy a brand built on honesty and imagination.
Our business model, centered on the joyful exchange of LEGO products through buy, sell, and trade, stands strong. We stand behind our dedicated franchisees across the nation who pour their hearts into their communities every day.
To the real building community—the families, the AFOLs (Adult Fans of LEGO), and the neighbors who know who we truly are—we thank you for standing with us. We are doing the hard work to make things right, to protect our customers, and to hold ourselves to the highest possible standards.
We ask that you look at the facts, reject the manufactured drama and unlawful activities, and continue supporting your local brick-and-mortar LEGO resell stores. Together, we will keep building.
FAQ
Q: If you want a resolution, why not just pay the money demanded online?
A: We are completely willing to sit down and figure out a fair, reality-based way to ensure this grandfather is made whole. However, there is a fundamental difference between a good-faith resolution and giving in to a coordinated, viral extortion campaign. We will not reward individuals who use fake delivery uniforms, forged signatures, staged police encounters, and residential harassment to manufacture a storyline for profit. We want to help the family; we will not reward a toxic online circus.
Q: How is corporate holding itself accountable to ensure this never happens again?
A: We are taking hard lessons from this situation and using them to strengthen our franchise operations. We are implementing three strict pillars of systemic accountability:
- More Rigorous Record Keeping and Inventory Management: We are updating our inventory logging requirements. This means mandating real-time, digital tracking from the moment a collection enters a store, creating an indisputable, permanent, identifiable paper trail that protects both the collector and the business. This process began in January 2025 and continues to be tightened and refined.
- Absolute Transparency in the Buy, Sell and Trade Process: We are completely eliminating ambiguity at the counter. Every single customer transaction—especially large-scale trades—will require standardized, corporate-approved disclosure forms. Informal, off-the-books side deals or localized consignment arrangements will continue to be strictly prohibited system-wide.
- Mandatory Professional Behavior and De-escalation Training: We are introducing comprehensive training for all corporate staff, franchise owners and their staff, as well as new and incoming franchisees. This curriculum focuses on maintaining strict professional boundaries, handling complex customer disputes with empathy and clarity, and understanding the precise corporate protocols required to resolve store-level issues safely and professionally. Internal reviews are actively being executed, and any deviations from corporate standards will be addressed through formal corrective actions.
Q: Is the offer to help find and return the sets identified as similar (though not proven to be Mr. Mansell’s) still valid?
A: Yes. Our position has been, and remains, that we are willing to help the parties resolve their private dispute, including the Mansell family, how we can. To the extent any inventory owned by the Mansell family can be reliably confirmed as having been in BAM’s possession, we are willing to identify it and coordinate its return. We are also offering to assist in the recovery of any financial amounts that may be owed, but that process must be handled through lawful channels, supported by documentation, and coordinated with the Mansell family or their authorized legal representatives.
Because there have been conflicting claims, unauthorized third parties, and public statements that do not match the documentation provided to us, we cannot responsibly resolve the matter through social media demands or individuals who have not established legal authority to act on the family’s behalf. We remain willing to help, but we need authentic and reliable documentation and proper representation necessary to do so responsibly and fairly.
Any further questions or complaints should be directed to complaints@bricksandminifigs.com.