More than two decades ago, when eBay first opened for business, it sparked the e-commerce revolution. Throughout the years, it has attracted 134 million members, ranging from thrift store hunters and home-based entrepreneurs.
Nearly $74 billion was transacted in 2022 on eBay. As Ina and David Steiner published a series of critical pieces in their e-commerce newsletter in 2019, they were the targets of a coordinated campaign of brutal har@ssment and online stalking by a member of eBay workers.
Several current and former employees of eBay Inc. are currently serving time in federal prison and the couple who ran the website EcommerceBytes has filed a federal lawsuit against eBay.
Ina Steiner told reporter Sharyn Alfonsi:
“It… it… it felt like corporate terrorism, because we were terrorized and it was very calculated. It was very vicious”.
Her husband David Steiner added:
“One of the things that we also learned was what sadistic pleasure these people took in terrorizing us.”
The couple received unsettling objects like dead insects and pig masks from horror movies as part of the har@ssment. They accidentally sent packages to their neighbors’ houses as well. They also claimed on “60 Minutes” that their inboxes were flooded with adult-themed newsletters.
Twitter and other social media platforms were next, followed by unsolicited phone calls. Ina Steiner said:
“Somebody left a voicemail for us, saying they couldn’t fulfill the order for a wet specimen and David was the one they called. And he said, ‘What is a wet specimen?’ And… and it was a pig fetus”.
“That’s when I really… my heart sank, because I thought who might be angry at something I wrote? And I couldn’t figure it out. I mean, we were… we were desperately trying to think, ‘Who could it be?'”
Jason Sutherland and John Haswell, the detectives who investigated the case for the Natick Police Department were also interviewed. According to Sutherland, David Steiner photographed the license plate of a suspicious car in one instance.
One of the persons convicted for her part in the har@ssment was linked to a car rental company that was listed on the license plate. When he learned the woman’s name, he reportedly contacted the Steiners. Jason Sutherland said:
“I said, Are you familiar with the name? They weren’t and while I was saying that, I think… Mrs. Steiner did the her own little search and said, Oh, my God… she works for eBay.”
Andrew Lelling, a former United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts referred to the case as unusual during the broadcast. He said:
“What was unique about this case is that you had relatively senior management at a Fortune 500 company… who thought it was a good idea to launch what can only be described as a campaign of terror targeting a middle-aged couple in Natick.”
Former eBay CEO Devin Wenig sent emails regarding eCommerceBytes and sent a text message saying, “Take her down,” but Lelling claims there is not enough evidence to link either Wenig or eBay’s chief communications officer, Steve Wymer, to the har@ssment.
Wymer is accused of saying to James Baugh, eBay’s chief of security, “I want to see ashes.” Baugh was blamed as the campaign’s mastermind. Lelling said on the show:
“People say things like that all the time, Especially senior people in companies. It’s not the same as, I am knowingly joining a criminal conspiracy to cyberstalk a couple in Natick. People use loose talk like that all the time.”
David Steiner was not convinced by your argument. He said:
“Let me ask you something. If you have a dog that is trained to attack and then you give them the command, Take her down aren’t you as responsible for the damage that happens”.
Although no eBay representatives made an appearance on “60 Minutes,” the firm did issue a comment.
“The misconduct of these former employees was wrong, and we will do what is fair and appropriate to try to address what the Steiners went through. The events from 2019 should never have happened and as eBay expressed to the Steiners, we are very sorry for what they endured”.
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