EBay has reportedly agreed to a $55.7 million settlement with a Massachusetts couple who were sent live cockroaches, maggots, a funeral wreath, bloody pig mask, fetal pig and other bizarre items after they criticized the platform on their e-business newsletter.
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The harassment scheme against David and Ina Steiner, the founders of EcommerceBytes, was hatched in the summer of 2019 after CEO Devin Wenig and Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer, resolved in private emails to shut them down.
In August 2019, Ina Steiner wrote a story about a lawsuit brought by eBay accusing Amazon of poaching its sellers. A half-hour after the article was published, Wenig sent Wymer a message saying: “If you are ever going to take her down … now is the time,” according to court documents.
Wymer then instructed the corporate security team to do “whatever it takes” to accomplish this, the New York Times reported.
“I genuinely believe these people are acting out of malice and ANYTHING we can do to solve it must be explored,” Wymer told James Baugh, eBay’s director of Global Security and Resiliency in early August, 2019. He signed off with: “Whatever. It. Takes.”
Baugh, who told employees that he used to work at the CIA, was the alleged mastermind of the scheme.
Stephanie Popp, a supervisor in the security division, soon began cyberstalking Ina Steiner on Twitter (now X) under the fake account, @Tui_Elei, which pretended to be an eBay seller from Samoa.
The profile picture was a skull, and he seemed to be an eBay user from Samoa who believed that EcommerceBytes had harmed his sales. Ms. Steiner ignored the messages, even as the tone got angrier and more abusive. @Tui_Elei wrote: “I guess im goin to have to get ur attention another way bitch…”
A parade of disturbing deliveries began at 4 p.m. on Aug. 10, when a package containing a bloody pig mask arrived at the Steiners’ home. Fourteen minutes later, @Tui_Elei wrote: “DO I HAVE UR ATTENTION NOW????”
Wymer continued encouraging the harassment, telling Baugh on August 11, “I want to see ashes. As long as it takes. Whatever it takes.”
The Steiners received a book titled “Grief Diaries: Surviving the Loss of a Spouse” and a funeral wreath. They got fly larvae and live spiders and a box of cockroaches. Copies of the September issue of “Hustler: Barely Legal” touting “eye-popping 18-year-olds” arrived at the homes of neighbors with David Steiner’s name on them.
The Twitter bombardment continued, as @Tui_Elei began to hint at violence: “wen u hurt our bizness u hurt our familys… Ppl will do ANYTHING 2 protect family!!!!”Read more FCC Chair Carr Defends License Review as ABC Cries Censorship
The couple’s home address in Natick, Massachusetts, was also posted online with public invitations to attend “swinger” parties. According to a former employee, Baugh got the inspiration for these intimidation tactics from several movies he liked, including “American Gangster,” “Wolf of Wall Street,” and “Meet the Fockers.”
The scheme went sideways in Natick later that month when Baugh and another eBay security division employee, Veronica Zea, were caught stalking the Steiners and attempting to put trackers on their vehicles. The local police got the FBI involved and the unhinged plot quickly unraveled.
In June 2020, the Trump Justice Department charged six eBay employees and contractors with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses; a seventh former employee was charged in July and eBay itself was also later charged, the NYT reported.
“This was a determined, systematic effort by senior employees of a major company to destroy the lives of a couple in Natick,” said the U.S. attorney in Boston, Andrew Lelling, at a news conference, “all because they published content the company executives didn’t like.”
Each charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison. Mr. Baugh, whose age was given as 45, and his deputy, David Harville, 48, were arrested. The other defendants are Ms. Zea, who is now 26; Ms. Popp, 32; Stephanie Stockwell, 26; and Brian Gilbert, 51. A seventh employee, Philip Cooke, 55, was charged in July.
Neither Wenig nor Wymer were charged, and both denied involvement in the intimidation campaign. Wenig is currently a director of General Motors, a position that pays over $300,000 a year. Wymer has been the chief executive of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley since September 2020.
The Steiners went on to sue eBay in July 2021, along with Wenig, Wymer, the seven defendants in the criminal case; and Progressive F.O.R.C.E. Concepts (PFC), an independent security firm.
In their 2021 lawsuit filed in Boston federal court, the couple said that the company engaged in a conspiracy to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them” in order to “stifle their reporting on eBay.”
As part of the July 28, 2026, settlement, eBay agreed to pay $46.15 million to the Steiners; fund $6 million in charitable contributions to nonprofit organizations; and issue a “strongly-worded” statement about the conduct of its former top executives.
“It’s been a long, long struggle, and we’re just glad it’s over,” Ina Steiner said. “This can happen to really ordinary people who, out of the blue, can be terrorized.”
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