Everyone is Missing This! (Bricks & Minifigs Corporate Is WAY More F*** Than You Think)

In this episode of Bricks and Minifigs 2, Malcolm and Simone Collins break down the Coffeezilla investigation into the Bricks & Minifigs Lego controversy. They explain what Coffeezilla allegedly got wrong—especially around accounts payable, business acquisitions, liabilities, and ownership of consignment inventory.Malcolm and Simone (experienced business buyers/sellers) dive into why the previous owner wasn’t being shady, how stock purchases transfer liabilities, why the “missing Legos” narrative misses the bigger picture, and the legal realities of taking over a business with existing obligations. They also discuss the broader saga, corporate responses, Brian Mansell’s history with the company, and why the focus should now be on properly resolving things with investigator Ben.A must-watch for anyone following the Bricks & Minifigs drama, Lego collectors, business ethics enthusiasts, or fans of deep-dive investigations. What do you think—did Coffeezilla miss key business 101 details?Episode TranscriptMalcolm Collins: [00:00:00] you had watched the Coffeezilla piece and were convinced by it on Bricks and Minifigs. And- I mean- Oh my God, I thought that you with your business background would immediately see what he was getting wrong.Simone Collins: What was he getting wrong?Malcolm Collins: So there were two big things he got wrong. Okay. The, the really big glaring one is when he said the previous owner sold some of the sets without sending the money to the guy, right?And yet we see from her own words when they’re doing the transition of ownership, she goes, “You’re going to-” Yeah,Simone Collins: I’m worried about... Yeah. “Malcolm Collins: You’reSimone Collins: gonna close out-” And they, they’re like, “We’re gonna have some- That’s gonna get handled by someone else.”Malcolm Collins: That’s what I heard. No, no, no. But she wasn’t worried about the inventory.Mm-hmm. She, she was worried more about closing out the accounts.Speaker 2: These are ones that haven’t-- he has not been paid his percentage yet, and if I don’t have the tickets, I won’t know how much I need to pay him. That, that’s a business thing and not necessarily yours. If, if taking on the business, he takes on all that comes on that [00:01:00] part.Speaker 3: What’s extremely funny about this piece in retrospect is you can see that the person, if not the CEO, at least somebody at Bricks & Minifigs properly understood the law that when you buy a business, you take on accounts payableMalcolm Collins: Yeah. What that means in business speak is she knew part of the money that was meant to go to him had been unpaid. Oh. And she’s like, “I need to go over my notes.” She even specifically says, “I need to go over my notes to see those amounts.” And then they say, “No, we’ll take on that responsibility.”Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.Malcolm Collins: This is a normal thing in business. Yeah. This isn’t her being shady. It’s not like-Simone Collins: Well, that’s... When you acquire a company if it is not- an asset acquisition. If it’s a stock acquisition, you also acquire their liabilitiesMalcolm Collins: Liabilities.Simone Collins: And that, one of the liabilities- You acquire their liabilitiesis your accounts payable, and that is accounts payable. Yeah. Yeah,Malcolm Collins: that’s, that’s accounts... Th- this is the most 101 thing in business, and you were like, “Oh, there weren’t that many Legos in the store because she had sold some before,” and it’s like, n- that doesn’t, that doesn’t matter. And then the second thing- No,Simone Collins: what, what Coffeezilla said is that, that I [00:02:00] thought was most notable was that the amount that’s sort of pending was much smaller than people thought.It’s more, like, in the $20,000 range. That’sMalcolm Collins: because he wasn’t inc- including the accounts payable in the amount pending.Simone Collins: I thought that’s what the amount was, that the accounts payable- No ... oh.Malcolm Collins: He was talking about the physical sets that were still in the store, because he didn’t seem to understand accounts payable.Simone Collins: Hmm, I... Th- that can’t be. That’s too obvious.Malcolm Collins: No, it’s obvious to you because you’re a business person. He very clearly, if you watch the piece, and he was calculating the amount of money that he said Bricks and Minifigs owed the , the guy, he just did an addition of all of the sets he could find in their inventory.He didn’t- Oh ... include accounts payable, which would have, from what we’re hearing, maybe doubled that amount. So that was the first thing that really annoyed me.Simone Collins: I just figured if that was the case, then they would have included, featured prominently in that particular investigative episode, Coffeezilla, I mean.Like, i- she would say, “And the accounts payable amount was, like, $34,000.” SheMalcolm Collins: [00:03:00] literally says that. She goes, “I need to check my records so I can settle accounts with the people who have order-”Simone Collins: Yeah, in, in... I know, from the recorded clip, but she doesn’t say how much that was. In the, in the subsequent interview that she had- Why?InMalcolm Collins: the subsequent... Because she’s being an idiot ...Simone Collins: with Coffeezilla, she would have stated that amount. ‘Malcolm Collins: Cause she’s being an idiot. But in the, i- when she’s having the store taken over, she literally says, “I need to settle the accounts,” implying there’s a large amount of accounts payable specifically to him.Because, the,Simone Collins: Then why has no one stated that amount?Malcolm Collins: When we did our first episode, people were like, “Malcolm, it’s crazy that you saw things in this case that I just didn’t understand.” I think a lot of people are just ‘tards, Simone. That’s, that’s the, the- Well,Simone Collins: no, but I mean, it, it, at the very le- oh, I guess the Brian, the original owner would not know the amounts because he wouldn’t have been aware, aware of what was sold and not.Do youMalcolm Collins: think Ben or Brian understands what accounts payable is? The, the, these-Simone Collins: Yes, I, I imagine they do. But I also imagine they couldn’t know. Like, ‘cause i- if I’ve, if I’ve given something to a shop for consignment, I don’t know at any given day what [00:04:00] has sold and what hasn’t. Yeah. Like, there’s not... That’s just for us to know.Malcolm Collins: Yes, which is why she said, “I need to check my records.” Okay. So that really annoyed me.Speaker 4: Just so you understand why the law works this way, imagine if the law didn’t work this way and accounts payable magically disappeared or was transferred to the old owner of a business, , whenever the business changed hands. Now keep in mind, the owner of a business can be a business, , or not a specific individual.So suppose, , one individual, , , , accrues a large amount of accounts payable in a business, , and they just then transfer that business to themselves for like a one dollar sale, right? , And they say, “Oh, all the money that I owed people with this business...” , N-no, or let’s not say themselves. Let’s say their brother., They say, “All the money this business owed immediately disappears because it transferred hands.” , That would be completely stupid. , Th- that would be like the easiest business trickeroo in the world. Like, it’s very obvious why n- you cannot have the law work this wayMalcolm Collins: And then the second thing that really annoyed me- ... that we can go further on-Simone Collins: Oh,Malcolm Collins: [00:05:00] God. Crap ... is they keep focusing on whether or not she, she had the right to enter into the consignment deal, which is just totally irrelevant to any of the facts of the case.Whether or not she had that... So think of it this way, Simone. Uh-huh. Suppose I own a garage right? Or let, let’s, let’s make this different. I’m leasing a garage from somebody else, okay? To make this even clearer. And then I use the garage I’m leasing in violation of the terms of my lease to do what, what do you what do you call that where you, like, pay somebody to s- park your car for you at, like, restaurants?Well, I d- I don’t know the term. You pay somebody at a restaurant to park your-Simone Collins: Valet ...Malcolm Collins: valet. Okay, yes. So I use it for valet storage in violation of the agreement, right?Simone Collins: Oh.Malcolm Collins: Then the owner comes back and they go, “You didn’t have the right to run valet service here.” So then what they do is they take possession of...Because I’m only subleasing the asset, right? They [00:06:00] retake possession of the garage, and then they turn around and start selling all of the cars that I had been- Yeah,Simone Collins: like you parked a Ferrari and they’re like, “So this is mine now.”Malcolm Collins: Yeah, they’re like, “This is m-”. That is not remotely how the law works.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: You don’t take possession of an asset- Mm, Just because it’s in a location that you took possession of.Speaker 5: Again, to understand why it would be comical for the law to work this way, suppose I owned a, , storage locker that I rented to someone, and then the moment they moved in all their stuff, I then went to, , my brother, and I sold the storage locker to my brother. And then he now said, “Now I own everything in the storage locker.”Or I own a, a hotel, and I wait until a bunch of really rich people come there for a trip, and then I sell it to somebody, and, , now they own everything. All you would need to do to ste- legally steal stuff from somebody is to own something where you expected something of high value to go across, and then [00:07:00] immediately sell it to somebody who you’re close with the moment the person with high value walks across a w- five-foot square of land that you ownSimone Collins: Yeah, I wonder how the law works with that. Like, if someone puts stolen goods or, like, someone else’s goodsMalcolm Collins: in your home. No, it’s, it’s, no, it’s not how the law... It’s the clear... Okay, so m- suppose I walk into a building and I set a, a, a diamond ring I own on a table in the building.Yeah. And then that building sells. The person who buys the building doesn’t own my diamond ring. There’sSimone Collins: no finders keepers law?Malcolm Collins: Y- that’s not remotely how it works. That wasn’t included in the assets of the purchase. It wasn’t neg- And this is all laid out when you make a purchase of a company.Simone Collins: Yeah.Malcolm Collins: But yeah, sorry, that really gets me as well, but it continues.Simone Collins: How does US law work with ownership of lost items? For example, if I lose a diamond ring at a restaurant and someone picks it up Are they legally in trouble for not giving it back to me if I [00:08:00] return to the restaurant and say, “It was mine”? What does thatMalcolm Collins: have to do with anything?Simone Collins: I’m just curious about it.‘Cause now I’m just curious about finders keepers law. It’s not a law. It’s not a law. I’m just wondering like-Malcolm Collins: This is the... I mean, it’s clearly how the Bricks & Minifigs guy think the law worksThe, the, the principle of finders keepersSimone Collins: So b- basically property is yours unless you abandon it. A finder- Yeah ... generally has a right to possess an item that is good against everyone except the true owner. Okay, so there is kind of a finders keepers. But they have to give it back to the true owner if the owner can prove owners- so there kind of is a s- a finders keepers law.Malcolm Collins: No, if the owner can prove ownership. Mm-hmm. Which the original contract proves that the person that theySimone Collins: took the property from- Yes. No, 100%, yeah. W- yeah, with, with bricks and minifigs, of course. That’s, that’s obvious ...Malcolm Collins: didn’t have ownershipSimone Collins: Yeah, and then it’s a civil issue if you refuse to give it back. Interesting Mm. Many systems distinguish lost from [00:09:00] mislaid, AKA, like, deliberately set down or forgotten. Property left on the premises is often treated as mislaid. Huh. Law is so interesting. I totally can understand why that one famous housewife women write to work, like, female equality... What was her name?She has a, a difficult to pronounce, unflattering style name who became a lawyer.Speaker 6: Note here, , while I say I w- don’t hold it against, , Coffeezilla for not understanding accounts payable, , maybe he did understand it and it just slipped his mind in this case because he has done really complex financial stuff into some of his other videos. So it’s, it’s almost sort of baffling to me that this wasn’t just like immediately top of mind for him.But maybe -- he knows what accounts payable is, he just doesn’t know what happens with accounts payable during a business transaction, ,Like even if she was being shady, even if the accounts payable she had had accrued for a year or two years, it would still transfer to Bricks and Minifigs. , It’s, it, it’s [00:10:00] irrelevant.Although it appears very clearly that she wasn’t being shady because she specifically asked for her books before being kicked out to ensure that she did make the payments to himSpeaker 2: These are ones that haven’t-- he has not been paid his percentage yet, and if I don’t have the tickets, I won’t know how much I need to pay him. That, that’s a business thing and not necessarily yours. If, if taking on the business, he takes on all that comes on that part.Speaker 6: because very few people... Simone and I have bought businesses before. That was our job in the past, to buy and sell businesses, which is why this is so incredibly salient for us and just seems like the simplest thing in the world., Which it should have been for the Bricks and Minifigs corporation. , And it seems to have been, because when the guy was making the transaction, he explained to her accurately, “When you do a acquisition, we take on the accounts payable.” , “That’s a business thing,” as he said. You know, that’s a, you know, simple understanding., Second here is, i-it’s not that Coffeezilla did nothing in their video. They did some really cool work. It was really cool when they showed the guy that he had all [00:11:00] this stuff in his own corporate records from his own corporate Google Drive, and the guy was like, “What?” And then, oh my God, that’s so cool, the, , U-Haul thing was really neatSpeaker 9: See the window, but the problem is it’s night outside, so you can’t see. And so I’m looking at everything I can, and there’s just nothing, you know? And I have this alternate angle, I’m looking at that. And then wait a minute. Zoom in on that photo. Bring up the brightness of this photo a little bit and my gosh, there’s a U-Haul in the parking lot right outside of the store the night of November 14th, 2024.This is something that Matt said he had seen footage of, and it couldn’t be true. And again, I, I believe I have seen footage from that night that shows clearly out into the parking lot, and there’s no U-Haul. After seeing this, I said, “I really have to make a call.” And that’s when the story changed. So last night I talked with Matt McNeff.I brought up this question of the U-Haul. He told me [00:12:00] emphatically there was no U-Haul. Y’all came to me this morning. You said, “Hey, we looked into it. There actually was a U-Haul there that night.” Can you clear up what that’s about?Simone Collins: Actually, it, it is a good idea to do the, the Lego mini fig one, just to give people an update on what everyone’s missing, because that’s actually what everyone’s missing.Yeah,Malcolm Collins: I was, I was so annoyed by the Coffeezilla piece on it. I was like, it, it did- they’re obviously talking about keeping accounts payable, and the other company, you take on accounts payable. That is normal when you acquire a business. That is like Business 101Simone Collins: If you do a stock purchase, the question is,Malcolm Collins: we- we- If you do a hostile takeover of a store, you obviously take on that asset.You, you take on liabilities and assets. If y- during a hostile takeover, you absolutely do.Simone Collins: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how it legally works with franchise agreements, like, how the corporate entities are relatedMalcolm Collins: or not. Here’s another way to put it, Simone. It doesn’t matter how you took over a company.If that company had a bunch of stolen [00:13:00] goods, goods that were legally not theirs in a storeroom- Yeah ... you don’t all of a sudden own all of those stolen goods just because you own the company now. Mm. That is functionally what the company did. They said, “Your paper only proves that the woman who we took over the store from didn’t own it.”It’s like, no, it proves that you don’t own it because you only acquired her assets. Mm-hmm. You didn’t acquire other people’s assets simply because they happened to be around. That is the wildest thing ever. Like, I ... To think that you o- like, when you think about it with the stolen stuff, I think it becomes so much more clear.To think that, “Oh, I bought a warehouse full of stolen goods, now I own all of the stolen goods,” everyone would be like, “W- no.” Or even worse, right? Somebody was renting a, a, a storage locker from me and stole a bunch of goods, and they defaulted on their payment so I took all of those goods. It’s like, th- that’s not how this works [00:14:00] at all.And you’re like, “But it was illegal for them to have the goods there in the first place.” And I’m like, “That does nothing to help your case.”Simone Collins: So you think for proper resolution, the accounts payable just needs to be paid out to this guy?Malcolm Collins: Well, no. But the framing of the Coffeezilla where he tried to make it seem like it was over a very small amount of money, and that’s the- Yeah, ISimone Collins: guess his framing, if I recall correctly, was just, like, the, the big thing is where are the missing Legos?They either were stolen by a disgruntled employee orMalcolm Collins: one of these- No, that’s literally not the thing, and that’s what I’m trying to explain. No, no,Simone Collins: no. I, what I’m, what I’m trying to do is recap what his argument was, and I think that’s what his argumentMalcolm Collins: was, right? And it’s a stupid argument. We know where the missing Legos are, functionally speaking.They were either sold in those early books, or they were inherited by the store. What he uncovered is that the vast majority of the money to be paid for this guy may not have been in the Legos in the store, but in accounts payable. Mm. That doesn’t mean the [00:15:00] previous owners did anything wrong. The, w- basically we know where they were.They were sold. And we know the previous owners didn’t do anything wrong because we have the video where she explicitly says, “I need the books to settle my accounts.” Settling your accounts means paying out accounts payable. That’s what that means. They said, “No, don’t settle your accounts. We will manage it.”That, that is, that was literally them. And then somebody could say, “Oh, that’s a low-level employee saying that,” or something like that. That low a level, even if it was a low-level employee, when they took custody of the books which managed what had gone out and what hadn’t gone out without going through with her, as you always do during a biggest acquisition, and she was trying to be nice in those videos and stuff like that.Like, she was literally like, “Hey, let’s get on the same page about the accounts payable, about the the, the co- consignment stuff.” And they’re like, “No, I don’t want to get on the same page with you.” Mm. Because they knew, I think functionally what happened is they knew that the way they were shutting down the store was very immoral- Mmand they felt really uncomfortable about it. SoSimone Collins: they- [00:16:00] Oh, like, “I’ve been told to do this. I’m just doing my job. This is corporate.” Yeah. Yeah.Malcolm Collins: Yeah. They basically knew corporate had sent them to do something absolutely demonstrably immoral. And so even though she was willing to, and we see in the videos, obviously willing to talk them through everything they didn’t want to be talked through everything, right?And that, that is on them. If I since, so like, if they’re like, “Oh, that’s a low-level employee. He doesn’t represent corporate or anything like that,” it’s not even the fact that he affirmed to her, “Oh, I know what’s in these books.” Corporate at any point could have gone back to her to get better accounting, and it appears that they never tried, right?And it appears that she wanted to give them the better accounting. What corporate does, if I send let’s say I send an employee, and the employee is the one who actually shuts down the storage locker that’s full of stolen goods, right? That doesn’t mean that I, of a [00:17:00] company, am now not legally responsible for the fact that those goods are stolen and need to get back to their rightful owner.Even if it’s an employee who shuts down the garage that’s full of cars that somebody had you park for them, right? That, that doesn’t absolve corporate from the basic financial accounting responsibility of determining the ownership of the assets of the property, especially when multiple people are telling you these assets are not what, you know...Speaker 14: And a day or so ago, corporate released a, their timeline of events, and their timeline of events clearly shows that from nearly the very beginning, they were very aware of this consignment Lego set. So they can’t say, “We were unaware that she didn’t own this.”Malcolm Collins: and the thing that always gets me is they keep saying, “We tried to give Brian Mansell all of this in the past.” Mm. Why can’t they provide proof of that? That would be very easy to provide proof of. Presumably it’s in an email, right? Emails are easily recorded. So [00:18:00] if they don’t have that email, then I don’t believe that.And I don’t understand why they haven’t presented that email of them trying to give them back in the past. It seems like an obvious lie. But also one thingSimone Collins: that- There’s, the, there’s disorganized stuff on both ends. Like, why did the original franchise owner s- provide spreadsheets of records so late as well.I don’t know.Malcolm Collins: Well, so the other thing that we’ve learned since the, the co- well, this was before the Coffeezilla piece, but he didn’t include it, is the way that Brian Mandzel originally acquired Bricks & Minifigs was through, in a really scammy way, suing his father for control of a company that his father had built.And it appears that pretty much since day one, Bricks & Minifigs has been bleeding money. So he basically- Oh ... stole his father’s assets and used that to build his pet project company that he has never been able to get financially stable, truly. And that might also explain why they cared so much about such a small amount of money.One, they’re just not good at their jobs, and then two, they feel [00:19:00] really pinched on money.Simone Collins: Right. They, they actually- When you, when you- ... don’t have the money.Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like when you look at his house, when you see, you know, his, it, it doesn’t look like a house with someone with that much money, right? So it, it may have been that’s why he felt pressured to steal this stuff, but it’s still stealing.Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I mean, also, if the company’s not immensely profitable- You know, it, it probably isn’t run well. They don’t have good records, like all that kind of thing. You know, like it’s not... It’s just kind of falling apart, so. That, that makes sense.Malcolm Collins: Yeah.Simone Collins: Poor things.Malcolm Collins: Anyway r- I mean, not poor th- th- the CEO’s not a poor thing.He seems like a truly evil person. The, the way that he’s acting and the way that he’s responding, that he still has Ben under a gag order, you know, that’s why I have to release this episode. Mm-hmm. Maybe, maybe you can let Ben talk, right? This isn’t a normal thing to do in the world of YouTube, and I think he thought talking down to a YouTuber, he didn’t realize in the world of the actual world today, YouTubers are significantly more powerful than these big CEOs who think [00:20:00] they can talk-Simone Collins: No, that’s why he did that.He did that because he was getting severe amounts of harassment becauseMalcolm Collins: of everyone getting his talk. Well, yeah, but cutting down the YouTuber only makes it worse. He needs to basically get on his hands and knees and beg the YouTuber. HeSimone Collins: can- Well, he doesn’t seem to understand that ...Malcolm Collins: you know, he made- He thinks heSimone Collins: can shut it downMalcolm Collins: Brian, like everything with Brian. It’s like it’s not Brian you need to settle this with anymore. It’s Ben you need to... It’s Ben who you need to prostrate yourself to. And I know that that hurts your ego, but fundamentally, that’s the only way this gets right. ButSimone Collins: anyway. Sorry. No, no, no, it’s not Ben. It’s Brian.Malcolm Collins: No, it’s Ben. It’s Ben. It’s the YouTuber that the CEO needs to be prostrating himself to, not the old man. He thinks he can make this right with the old man because it’s no longer about bricks and minifigs. The core issue now- Oh,Simone Collins: it’s, it’s about the cover-up ... isMalcolm Collins: about- It’s destroyingSimone Collins: FanTheFacts ...Malcolm Collins: the way that he tried to stifle Ben’s investigation and Ben’s honest efforts to try to get this, and then tried to destroy Ben’s life through jail time, through these court [00:21:00] cases.These are targeted, personalized court cases, right?Simone Collins: That’s true. HeMalcolm Collins: could choose not to do this, but he didn’t. So, no, absolutely. It is... And this is what he’s getting wrong. He needs to get Ben to accept his apology to even begin to get anywhere with this, not Brian. Ben is his problem here. Ben- Mm-hmmis not some kid anymore. Ben is the victim in everyone’s mind, and the core victim in everyone’s mind.Simone Collins: Well, especially the way he filmed that I can’t talk anymore video against this dark hostage style background. But anyway- Yeah ... I have to go get the kids. I love you so much.Speaker 12: What needs to be done next? What does that say? It’s saying we gotta use the wrong screwdriver to do it. Oh, no. It’s okay. Where did the wrong screwdriver go? I see a screwdriver right there. I’m [00:22:00] talking about the wrong one. See? There’s a Phillips head and a flathead. Do you know the difference between the two?Speaker 13: What? One has an X at the end and the other one has a line at the end. I don’t- The one with the red handle- Oh, here’s, here- That’s a wrench. Oh. Oh, here’s, hereSpeaker 12: you go, Tayn. This is the thing. Wait. Yeah, Octavian, it’s true that screwdrivers and wrenches are easier. No. Like, if you use that to turn- No, I don’t ... the screw in. Hey This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe