The original franchisee claims to have lost their life savings in that move. I have no idea how exactly that happened. Their story really sounds like something from Russia back when western investors had their company simply taken from them by someone well-connected.
It sounds like the original franchisee doesn’t want to admit that they were losing a lot of money already. Only someone really desperate would take on a $200K lego collection and only collect a 10% consignment fee. It would also explain the corporate “takeover” if they were already behind on paying their franchise fees or whatever they might have owed to corporate.
That being said, it’s not illegal to be a bad business person, and none of that excuses the subsequent behavior by BAM corporate or the new franchise owner.
* They had sold about half of the consigned inventory
* The old franchise owner said they had a job offer outside the country
* Said franchise owner was current on a restructured fee schedule that, they allege, was the direct result of corporate bungling the transfer of accounts from the franchise owner previous to them
I definitely heard 10% first and only later 35%. For some reason the videos don't have transcripts and the Gemini AI isn't available, so I can't try to search for it. But I'm 100% sure that 10% was the figure mentioned first (maybe I misunderstood and it was just being used as an example). If the real figure is 35%, then I retract any comments about them making a bad business deal.
From what I understand, the original franchisee wanted to sell the store because they wanted to leave the US (for "political reasons"; I suspect they don't want to live in Trumpland anymore, but that's pure speculation). The way it appears, the moment they announced that desire to sell, B&M corporate showed up to take control of the shop. And the consignment.
It sounds like corporate took away ownership and gave it to a new franchisee.
The original franchisee claims to have lost their life savings in that move. I have no idea how exactly that happened. Their story really sounds like something from Russia back when western investors had their company simply taken from them by someone well-connected.
It sounds like the original franchisee doesn’t want to admit that they were losing a lot of money already. Only someone really desperate would take on a $200K lego collection and only collect a 10% consignment fee. It would also explain the corporate “takeover” if they were already behind on paying their franchise fees or whatever they might have owed to corporate.
That being said, it’s not illegal to be a bad business person, and none of that excuses the subsequent behavior by BAM corporate or the new franchise owner.
* The store's consignment fee was 35%
* They had sold about half of the consigned inventory
* The old franchise owner said they had a job offer outside the country
* Said franchise owner was current on a restructured fee schedule that, they allege, was the direct result of corporate bungling the transfer of accounts from the franchise owner previous to them
I definitely heard 10% first and only later 35%. For some reason the videos don't have transcripts and the Gemini AI isn't available, so I can't try to search for it. But I'm 100% sure that 10% was the figure mentioned first (maybe I misunderstood and it was just being used as an example). If the real figure is 35%, then I retract any comments about them making a bad business deal.
From what I understand, the original franchisee wanted to sell the store because they wanted to leave the US (for "political reasons"; I suspect they don't want to live in Trumpland anymore, but that's pure speculation). The way it appears, the moment they announced that desire to sell, B&M corporate showed up to take control of the shop. And the consignment.