The Steiners ran an e-commerce industry newsletter called EcommerceBytes that had run negative coverage of eBay.
E-commerce giant eBay has settled a lawsuit and agreed to shell out $56 million to a couple that its staff targeted with live cockroaches, a fetal pig, death threats, as well as in-person surveillance.
The shop and selling platform and several of its top executives have agreed to pay $56 million in compensation to David and Ina Steiner, an elderly couple in Massachusetts that were targeted by staff at the company in 2019 with anonymous deliveries that included a fetal pig, live cockroaches, live spiders, a bloody pig Halloween mask, a funeral wreath, and a book about surviving the death of a spouse.
The Steiners, who ran an e-commerce industry newsletter called EcommerceBytes that had run negative coverage of eBay, alleged in a lawsuit that the anonymous deliveries and death threats were part of a coordinated campaign from the company to silence them into stopping their reporting on eBay.
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Additionally, their home address was posted online with public invitations for adult activities, and threats were posted against them on then-Twitter. The executives also reportedly turned up at the Steiners’ home to put trackers on their cars.
With the settlement, the company admitted that the situation "never should have happened" and that what the Steiners had to deal with was "reprehensible" and "wrong."
“This agreement is consistent with our commitment to fairly compensate the Steiners and fulfills our efforts to make things right,” a spokesperson said, per Dexerto. Former eBay CEO Devin Wenig is paying $2 million himself after communications with him and other executives have surfaced in the lawsuit. Wenig was found to have said "take her down" to another executive regarding Ina Steiner.
The lawyer for the couple, Christopher Murphy of Scalli Murphy Law PC, said that the “resolution sends a clear message that corporations and their executives cannot engage in this type of misconduct without facing significant consequences.”
The couple's civil complaint against the company follows a criminal investigation against eBay that resolved years earlier when seven employees were criminally charged in 2020. James Baugh, who was the company's former senior director of safety and security, was sentenced to five years in prison over the case. The company had to pay $3 million in criminal penalties.
The lawsuit was framed as an effort to "prevent similar corporate misconduct and protect First Amendment rights." The settlement does not have a confidentiality agreement, meaning that the Steiners are not blocked from talking about the case publicly after its resolution.
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