eBay Inc. agreed to pay nearly $50 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by a Massachusetts couple who accused former company executives and employees of executing a bizarre, targeted harassment campaign involving live cockroaches, a funeral wreath, and a bloody pig mask after unfavorable newsletter coverage.
The resolution brings a financial end to more than six years of legal proceedings stemming from the 2019 harassment campaign directed at David and Ina Steiner, founders of the e-commerce industry newsletter EcommerceBytes. While the parties reached a tentative agreement earlier in the year as the case headed toward trial, the settlement was finalized this month following renewed court filings in Boston federal court.
The Harassment Campaign and Escalating Pressure in Natick
The harassment began in the summer of 2019 after top executives at the online marketplace grew angered by the Steiners’ regular reporting on eBay, which often cast the company in an unflattering light. What started as threatening direct messages on social media quickly escalated into grotesque offline deliveries at the couple’s Natick home.
According to federal court records and legal filings, the campaign orchestrated by former employees featured a harrowing assortment of intimidation tactics. The bizarre anonymous deliveries included live cockroaches and spiders, fly larvae, a funeral wreath from a local florist, a book about dealing with the death of a spouse, and a bloody pig Halloween mask. The perpetrators also sent pornographic magazines bearing David Steiner’s name to a neighbor’s home and formulated plans to break into the couple’s garage to install a tracking device on their vehicle.
Ina Steiner noted the psychological toll of discovering that a major corporation she had covered for two decades was behind the terror. I could not conceive that a company I had been covering for the past two decades had tried to terrorize us into stopping our reporting,
she said in an email response to questions.
Financial Breakdown and Executive Payouts
The financial burden is shared among the corporate entity and individual former executives whose internal communications revealed the unprofessional tone driving the conspiracy.
| Contributor / Entity | Financial Commitment |
|---|---|
| eBay Inc. (Civil Compensation) | $46.15 million |
| Former CEO Devin Wenig | $2 million |
| Former Executive Wendy Jones | $500,000 |
| Former Executive Steve Wymer | $50,000 |
| eBay Charitable Funding | $6 million |
| Devin Wenig Charitable Contribution | $1 million |
In addition to the direct compensation, eBay will fund $6 million in charitable contributions to various nonprofit organizations. Furthermore, Devin Wenig is contributing an additional $1 million to a charity dedicated to protecting First Amendment rights, established in Ina Steiner’s name, bringing the total financial package to a substantial amount as noted in comprehensive industry reporting.
The Fight for Transparency and the Absence of Confidentiality
A central pillar of the agreement is the complete absence of a confidentiality clause, a demand that the plaintiffs insisted upon from the outset. Legal representation for the couple emphasized that transparency was nonnegotiable in a legal landscape where corporate misconduct is frequently shielded from public view.
“David and I were on the same page that this settlement should and must be made public — as victims who want to prevent something like this from ever happening to anyone else, and as reporters who believe in transparency.”
Ina Steiner, co-founder of EcommerceBytes, via APnews
Murphy added that the resolution serves as a warning that attempts by big business to suppress speech and the press will not be tolerated.
Criminal Convictions and Corporate Rebuilding
The civil settlement follows a parallel federal criminal investigation that upended eBay’s corporate structure years prior. In 2020, federal prosecutors charged seven former eBay employees for their roles in the coordinated cyberstalking and harassment conspiracy. Most of those defendants pleaded guilty and subsequently served time in federal prison or home confinement.
In 2024, eBay entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with federal authorities, agreeing to pay a separate $3 million criminal penalty. In statements addressing the conclusion of the civil litigation, corporate representatives reiterated apologies and distanced current management from the actions of the past administration.
“What the Steiners were subjected to by former eBay employees in 2019 was wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened.”
eBay Inc. corporate statement, via NBC News
The company acknowledged the unprofessional tone in internal communications involving former chief executive Devin Wenig, former chief communications officer Steve Wymer, and former senior vice president Wendy Jones. eBay maintained that the behavior does not represent its corporate culture, pointing to subsequent leadership changes and enhanced ethics training designed to prevent recurrence.
