EBay has agreed to pay nearly $56 million in a settlement with a Massachusetts couple who were the target of a bizarre harassment and stalking scheme, according to CNBC.
The couple, Ina and David Steiner, had been subjected to a “terror campaign” in 2019 that was “designed to stop their reporting,” attorneys for the Steiners said.
The Steiners run EcommerceBytes, a website closely followed by online sellers.EBay executives didn’t like its tone and content, reports CNBC’s Annie Palmer.
Federal prosecutors said senior eBay executives exchanged messages about Ina Steiner, including one where former CEO Devin Wenig said to “take her down.”
The couple received a stream of online threats and strange deliveries to their home, including live insects, a funeral wreath, a bloody pig mask and a book about surviving the loss of a spouse.
Additionally, former eBay employees surveilled the couple and attempted to install a GPS tracker on their car to keep tabs on their whereabouts.
The settlement, which resolves a 2021 civil case, includes a roughly $46.1 million payment from eBay, $2 million from Wenig, $500,000 from eBay’s former senior vice president of operations and $50,000 from eBay’s former chief communications officer.
The company and Wenig also agreed to donate to various nonprofits.
EBay, which was required to issue a statement as part of the agreement, said in a release that the settlement “fulfills our efforts to make things right” with the Steiners.
Wenig wasn’t named in the criminal case. He told the Boston Globe in a statement that the harassment was “deliberately done in secret and without my knowledge.”
