eBay Reaches $56 Million Settlement With E-Commerce Newsletter Writers It Terrorized In 2019 (techcrunch.com) 49
eBay and several former executives have agreed to pay $56 million to Ina and David Steiner, the newsletter writers targeted in a 2019 corporate harassment campaign that involved threats, surveillance attempts, and deliveries of live insects and other disturbing items. The settlement closes the couple's civil case after seven former employees pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the scheme. TechCrunch reports: Ina and David Steiner, a married couple and the co-authors of EcommerceBytes, inspired the ire of high-level eBay executives after occasionally criticizing the company in their newsletter. In 2019, a plot was concocted to intimidate the couple into halting their negative coverage. Executives used sock puppet social media accounts to harass the couple, while also sending them anonymous threatening letters and bizarre items in the mail -- including live spiders and cockroaches, pornographic magazines, a bloody pig mask, a funereal wreath, and a book about surviving the death of a spouse. According to previously released court documents, a plan that was attempted but never successfully carried out involved affixing a GPS tracking device to the couple's car. Yet another internally broached plan involved sending a "Samoan gang" to the Steiners' home.
The settlement this week resolves a 2021 civil case brought by the couple against eBay. The law office representing the Steiners writes that the settlement includes $46.15 million paid to the couple by eBay itself, as well as $2 million from former eBay executive CEO Devin Wenig. Additionally, $500,000 will be paid out to the couple from former eBay executive Wendy Jones, as well as $50,000 from former eBay executive Steve Wymer. Additional funds are being paid to various non-profits. In 2022, seven former eBay employees were criminally charged and pled guilty in relation to the plot, including the company's former security chief, James Baugh -- who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison. Others indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice include David Harville, Brian Gilbert, Stephanie Popp, Stephanie Stockwell, Philip Cooke, and former eBay contractor Veronica Zea.
The settlement this week resolves a 2021 civil case brought by the couple against eBay. The law office representing the Steiners writes that the settlement includes $46.15 million paid to the couple by eBay itself, as well as $2 million from former eBay executive CEO Devin Wenig. Additionally, $500,000 will be paid out to the couple from former eBay executive Wendy Jones, as well as $50,000 from former eBay executive Steve Wymer. Additional funds are being paid to various non-profits. In 2022, seven former eBay employees were criminally charged and pled guilty in relation to the plot, including the company's former security chief, James Baugh -- who was sentenced to nearly five years in prison. Others indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice include David Harville, Brian Gilbert, Stephanie Popp, Stephanie Stockwell, Philip Cooke, and former eBay contractor Veronica Zea.
Wait... (Score:2, Interesting)
The evidence (Score:5, Informative)
Had a look at the criminal complaint [justice.gov] just to find out where the perpetrators had gone wrong.
Sending anonymous tweets and E-mails, they purchased pre-paid debit cards to send packages to their home, various harassment techniques such as ordering a pizza "pay on delivery" at 4:30 AM, and so on and so on... how on Earth did the NPD ever figure this out?
Turns out the perpetrators flew from California to Boston area (Natick) to put a GPS on the Steiners' car, which they couldn't do because it was kept in a locked garage, so they rented vehicles to surveil the Steiners, their license plates were noted and given to Natick Police Department (NPD), and the rental agency was contacted.
Once the eBay operatives were identified, they tried various misdirects and obfustication techniques, but NPD a) verified their statements, and so figured out they were lying, and b) contacted eBay directly, which had a security team respond in good faith, and the whole plan unravelled.
One, single mistake is all that stood between a long campaign of harassment and getting found out. One good local police department who took the trouble to look deeply into the problem and figure out the truth despite a torrent of misdirection and obfustication.
I wonder how many more campaigns of harassment are ongoing, led by people who know how to conduct vehicle-based surveillance, or encouraged by ineffective or lazy policing.
Re:The evidence (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder how many more campaigns of harassment are ongoing
Look no further then every Trump/DOJ revenge prosecution in the last year, along with the ICE/gestapo masked anonymous death squads, and the concentration camps being built all over the country.
Example: relatives of the NYT reporters who broke the story on the Qatar Trump 747 bribe aircraft being unsafe had their phone records subpoenaed by the FBI.
Don't forget that you are paying for all of it and it's going to get far worse real soon.
Re: (Score:3)
Those are visible harassment campaigns (and visible on purpose to scare others). He was wondering about ones people don't know about, secret and/or unreported harassment campaigns.
Re: The evidence (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
b) contacted eBay directly, which had a security team respond in good faith, and the whole plan unravelled.
Oh ... so eBay didn't harass them, some eBay employees did.
I had dropped in to mention that, about the misleading headline.
Re: The evidence (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
How are these people not in prison?
Re:The evidence (Score:5, Informative)
How are these people not in prison?
They are. The summary states that seven former employees pled guilty to criminal charges. I know it's tradition not to RTFA, but you are supposed to at least RTFS.
Re: (Score:2)
How are these people not in prison?
They are. The summary states that seven former employees pled guilty to criminal charges. I know it's tradition not to RTFA, but you are supposed to at least RTFS.
Um, the executives mostly got home confinement, not prison. Prison was reserved for the lower level offenders. The only "real" penalties the executives received were fines; with the CEO paying 2 million while the lowest level executive paid $50k. I suspect I read a different article than you did as I kept with tradition and did not read the linked article.
Re: (Score:2)
"Mostly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here:
"The seven convicted eBay employees and contractors include Baugh, who was sentenced to 57 months in prison in September 2022; David Harville, former Director of Global Resiliency, who was sentenced to 24 months in prison in September 2022; Stephanie Popp, former Senior Manager of Global Intelligence, who was sentenced to 12 months in prison in October 2022; Philip Cooke, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison and 12 months of home confinement in July 2021; Stephanie Stockwell and Veronica Zea, a former Manager of Global Intelligence and a contract intelligence analyst, respectively, who were each sentenced to one year in home confinement in October and November 2022. Brian Gilbert, a former Senior Manager of Security Operations, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing."
So three out of seven got home confinement, but one of them had it come after the completion of a prison sentence. One of the remaining two was "a contract intelligence analyst" which is hardly an executive. The last is "a manager of global intelligence" who reported to someone who got prison time ("senior manager of global intelligence) so I would also say "not an executive."
WRT to the CEO, I agree he got off easy and should have been prosecuted, for, at the
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Look no further than any school district trying to post socialist and trans shit to kids. You'll get this and worse from those cult members.
I suppose that someone with such an obsession with "soshulism", trans people, and children would understand cult behavior.
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how many more campaigns of harassment are ongoing, led by people who know how to conduct vehicle-based surveillance, or encouraged by ineffective or lazy policing.
If you exclude the government and collection agencies, 12,384 currently active. Most are small time (less than $10 million in assets of all parties).
Bullies... (Score:3)
... inspired the ire of high-level eBay executives after occasionally criticizing the company in their newsletter. In 2019, a plot was concocted to intimidate the couple into halting their negative coverage.
How is it that these supposed captains of commerce can be so thin-skinned? For people who pride themselves on being tough they sure do a lot of punching down from their lofty perches! And they're too clueless - even in a PR sense - to realize that shit like this does their rep more harm than any third-party criticism could.
Additionally, if your enterprise is so fucking vulnerable to criticism then maybe you should, you know, put some money and effort into making it better, instead of trying to silence the critics.
I am getting so sick of vicious, anti-social fucktards like these. It's said that "cream and bastards rise"; I'm seeing lots of bastards these days, but precious little cream ...
Re: (Score:3)
If executives have so little actual responsibility, why do we need them?
Re:Bullies... (Score:5, Insightful)
Their actions aren't really about reputation, whether their own or the company they represent. It's all about ego and control for these people. It's about demonstrating power and influence, to show that they belong to a privileged class for whom certain consequences do not apply.
When we think of it in that way, we can explain so much of the behaviors we have recently witnessed (and continue to witness). These are people who believe they can act with impunity because they have not been held accountable in any meaningful way. And for the most part, that belief has proven to be correct, which is why we repeatedly see corrupt acts go unpunished.
It isn't really about the corruption per se. That's just the cherry on top. In fact, the real purpose is to demonstrate and signal to others that they CAN and DO get away with it, with no or minimal consequences. And the reason they want to demonstrate this is because it creates a feedback loop of more corruption and identifies those who will suck up to them versus thsoe who have ethical standards. How else do you know who to trust if you yourself are not trustworthy? Who do you know to target if you are a psychopath? Signaling that you can get away with murder is the key.
And I would argue that, in this case, the punishment was far too lenient, because if you think of the crime in this context, it really says that these people DID get away with it. They got a slap on the wrist. The company paid the bulk of the damages. And so, this settlement again signals that, yes, the privileged class is above the law, because even when the law finds them culpable, the penalty is nominal for them. It's a cost of doing business.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The people at the top of the ziggurat have always been more than willing to piss on those below them. Don't imagine that the media has caused this, because this is the prevailing reality and has been presumably since before recorded history, because it's certainly been true for as long as we know about.
Re: (Score:2)
Fair point. I would add that modern media does a great job of setting the lower ranks of society against each other so the upper crust have less - and less organized - opposition to worry about. The aristocrats have always gaslit the commoners; now we commoners join in and gaslight each other.
Re: (Score:2)
And I would argue that, in this case, the punishment was far too lenient, because if you think of the crime in this context, it really says that these people DID get away with it. They got a slap on the wrist. The company paid the bulk of the damages. And so, this settlement again signals that, yes, the privileged class is above the law, because even when the law finds them culpable, the penalty is nominal for them. It's a cost of doing business.
Yes, the punishment was far too lenient; however, it is more serious than you give it credit for. They lost some money directly and they have lost all future earning power except through investments. They will NEVER work anywhere again except maybe as a janitor. Of course, they are generally set for life barring major catastrophe, so yeah, the punishment was WAY to light.
Re: (Score:3)
we have to stop rewarding sociopaths with too much money & influence
Re: (Score:2)
we have to stop rewarding sociopaths with too much money & influence
We'd have to do a complete about-face on rewiring our entire moral and ethical code to be primarily driven by greed. Sociopaths know how to treat greed as their one and only virtue, and for some reason, even those of us who believe that it's not the ultimate goal of all life allow them to get by with it. Until we change that, we'll continue to promote sociopathy as a virtue, because it leads directly to greed as a virtue, and nobody seems willing to say greed is not our only virtue. Well, some may say it, b
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
I am getting so sick of vicious, anti-social fucktards like these. It's said that "cream and bastards rise"; I'm seeing lots of bastards these days, but precious little cream ...
In the book "The Peter Principle," perhaps the single quote that best encapsulates the entire premise is, "The cream rises until it sours." We just happen to be living through the moment of time where this has happened at a society-wide level.
Re: (Score:2)
How is it that these supposed captains of commerce can be so thin-skinned?
If you want to be the CEO of a large company, you have to win the political games.
If you want to win at office politics, you need to make sure nobody is saying anything bad about you. It's an essential skill.
Holy Shit! (Score:4, Informative)
This story reads like a bad movie plot. If they hadn't already proved it in court I would never have believed the story.
It's shocking and terrifying that a major corporation would go on a personal vendetta like this. I'm glad the perpetrators went to prison and I'm happy for the victims to receive their pay day.
Still unbelievable.
Re:Holy Shit! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Holy Shit! (Score:4, Insightful)
Literally threatening to kill your spouse tops it:
"a book about surviving the death of a spouse"
Re: (Score:2)
And a funeral wreath. And, apparently, a plan to send Polynesian gangsters (one imagines that this might consist of Dwayne Johnson showing up at their house singing "What can I say, except, Ex-tor-tion!") though it thankfully appears that did not come to fruition.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm glad the perpetrators went to prison
The executives received home confinement, NOT prison.
This whole thing is wild... (Score:4, Interesting)
I heard about this a couple of years ago when the court case was still going on, the podcast Behind the Bastards did a 2 parter on it, and it's just absolutely *weird* that anyone at eBay gave two shits about this newsletter. 99.9999% of eBay users on both sides of the transaction would have never heard of the newsletter, much less read it, so who cares? And the CEO involved here, he's not eBay's founder, he's like hired gun #12 or whatever for the slot so it's not like they're slagging his lovingly handcrafted lifelong labor of love or anything.
The BtB podcast eps on it are worth a listen if you're into that sort of thing, provides a lot of detail.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Damages are all over the place (Score:1)
Re: Damages are all over the place (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
They should have just bought the newsletter. (Score:2)
It makes you wonder how people like that got as far as they did, and if they were breaking the law to do so.
Justice Department Did Non-Partizan Work? (Score:2)
Should have hired Cambridge Analytica (Score:2)
No Funny? (Score:2)
"This is not the new business model journalism is looking for" is the obvious low-hanging joke I was hoping for.
Hey, I think they deserve the money, and probably quite a bit more when the lawyers' destruction of morality is suitably discounted, but the sad reality is that eBay sees it as in investment and they are just calculating whether the positive value of discouraging THOUSANDS of other journalists from investigating eBay's crimes is worth the occasional jackpot payout. The answer from eBay will come d