Online retailer eBay Inc. (EBAY) -) — a company that makes billions of dollars a year and is one of the most recognizable brand names in the country — has agreed to pay a $3 million fine for a personal vendetta some of the company's former executives and employees waged against a Massachusetts couple that had been critical of the company.
The U.S. Department of Justice charged the company with stalking, witness tampering and obstruction of justice as part of a "harassment and intimidation campaign" that targeted David and Ina Steiner, two private citizens who deigned to criticize the company online, according to the Justice Department.
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The company also entered into a deferred prosecution agreement that could result in eBay seeing the charges against it dismissed if it complies with certain conditions, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts said.
The couple used their spare time to publish EcommerceBytes, a newsletter focused on ecommerce that was often critical of the company's business practices. The small newsletter was such a large thorn in the side of some of the higher ups at eBay — which has a market cap of more than $21 billion — that they decided to respond by sending anonymous deliveries to the company's home in an attempt to intimidate them.
The deliveries included a book on surviving the death of spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig, a funeral wreath and live insects. The company also sent the couple private messages using sock puppet accounts on Twitter threatening to visit the victims home.
The harassers eventually made good on its threat and sent people to surveil the couple's home and put a GPS tracking device on their car.
“EBay engaged in absolutely horrific, criminal conduct. The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy.
The company's operatives even made Craigslist posts advertising open sexual encounters at the Steiner's home.
While the $3 million fine seems like a slap on the wrist for a company that made $7.4 billion in 2019, some of the former execs and employees involved in the scheme also received slaps on the wrist for the scheme that took place between Aug. 5 and Aug. 23, 2019.
Former eBay employees go to jail
Stephanie Popp, eBay's former senior manager of global intelligence, was 34 when she sentenced to a year and a day in 2022 for her role in the gangstalking campaign. Stephanie Stockwell, former manager of the company's global intelligence center, was 28 when she also copped to two years of probation, with one year of home confinement, for conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and attempting to tamper with a witness.
James Baugh, the senior director of safety and security for the company who was 47 at the time, received 57 months in prison with a $40,000 fine for being the ring leader of the campaign.
David Harville also received two years for his role.
EBay CEO never prosecuted
Devin Wenig, the CEO of eBay at the time, stepped down in 2019 due to the scandal, but was never prosecuted for any crimes despite the fact that his order to "take her (Ina Steiner) down" sparked the whole harassment campaign. Wenig has denied any knowledge of anything illegal and said that his order referred to using lawful means to take her down, not criminal ones.
That assertion has been disputed by Baugh's attorneys, who told the Associated Press that their client "faced relentless pressure" from the top echelons of the company, including Wenig, to do something about the newsletter.
Wenig has landed on his feet, maintaining the seat on General Motors' board of directors he has held since 2018. The $317,308 he made as a GM director in 2019 made him the fifth-highest paid of the company's nonemployee directors that year, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Meanwhile, eBay has distanced itself from Wenig and the entire incident.
“The company’s conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible,” said the company's current CEO Jamie Iannone. "We continue to extend our deepest apologies to the Steiners for what they endured. Since these events occurred, new leaders have joined the company and eBay has strengthened its policies, procedures, controls and training.
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