eBay to Pay $3M After Employees Harassed Couple by Mailing Them Live Spiders and Cockroaches

The U.S. Dept. of Justice said eBay "put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand"

eBay has been ordered to pay a $3 million fine to settle criminal charges after its employees harassed a Mass. couple by shipping them live spiders and cockroaches, among other items, in response to their online newsletter coverage criticizing the e-commerce giant in 2019.

The company was charged with two counts of stalking through interstate travel, two counts of stalking through electronic communications services, one count of witness tampering and one count of obstruction of justice and has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, according to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

As part of the deferred prosecution agreement, eBay has agreed to pay the $3 million criminal penalty, which is the statutory maximum fine for the six felony offenses, the release, which was shared Thursday, states. The company will also be required to retain an independent corporate compliance monitor for a period of three years and to make extensive enhancements to its compliance program.

“eBay engaged in absolutely horrific, criminal conduct. The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua S. Levy.

According to the release, eBay admitted that between about Aug. 5, 2019 and Aug. 23, 2019, Jim Baugh, eBay’s former Senior Director of Safety and Security, and six other members of eBay’s security team targeted the couple for their roles in publishing a newsletter that reported on issues of interest to eBay sellers.

“Senior executives at eBay were frustrated with the newsletter’s tone and content, and with the comments posted beneath the newsletter’s articles,” the U.S Dept. of Justice said in its release. “The harassment campaign arose from communications between those executives and Baugh.”

The victims were identified in an Information, a formal charging document, as Ina and David Steiner, a married couple living in Natick, Mass. According to the charging document, the pair co-founded EcommerceBytes, a website that since 1999 had reported on e-commerce companies, including eBay. Ina was the editor and reporter while David served as its publisher.

The harassment campaign began shortly after Ina wrote a piece about an eBay lawsuit accusing Amazon of stealing its sellers, according to the charging document.

Per the document, Ina alleged in the article that the company “had been unable to stop a decline in market sales, but trying to dissuade sellers from turning to Amazon (and trying to get Amazon to stop recruiting sellers) may not be the best tactic."

Once the story was published, authorities said eBay's CEO at the time, Devin Wenig (who has not been criminally charged) sent a message to another executive saying, “Ina is out with a hot piece on the litigation. If we are ever going to take her down ..now is the time,” according to the charging document. The message was then sent to Baugh, who called Ina a "biased troll who needs to get BURNED DOWN."

Soon after, the U.S. Department of Justice said that “Baugh and his co-conspirators executed a harassment campaign intended to intimidate the victims and to change the content of the newsletter’s reporting.”

The campaign involved sending anonymous and disturbing deliveries to the victims’ home, including a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig and a funeral wreath as well as live spiders and cockroaches, according to the charging document.

Further harassing behavior included sending private X (formerly Twitter) messages and public posts criticizing the newsletter’s content and traveling to Natick to surveil the victims and install a GPS tracking device on their car, the U.S. Dept. of Justice said. The harassment also featured Craigslist posts inviting the public for sexual encounters at the couple’s home.

According to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, the victims eventually spotted the surveillance team and contacted local police.

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“After learning of the Natick Police Department’s investigation, Baugh made false statements to police and internal investigators, and he and his team deleted digital evidence related to the cyberstalking campaign and falsified records intended to throw the police off the trail,” the release states.

In a statement posted to their website Thursday, the Steiners said eBay’s actions left a “damaging and permanent impact” on them “emotionally, psychologically, physically, reputationally, and financially.”

“We strongly pushed federal prosecutors for further indictments to deter corporate executives and board members from creating a culture where stalking and harassment is tolerated or encouraged,” the couple said. The Steiners have also filed a civil lawsuit against eBay and its former employees.

“We were targeted because we gave eBay sellers a voice and because we reported facts that top executives didn't like publicly laid bare,” the statement continued.

Baugh was among seven people, all former eBay employees or contractors, who have since pleaded guilty to their roles in the harassment campaign. According to the U.S Dept. of Justice, Baugh, who was described as the ringleader, was sentenced to 57 months in prison in September 2022.

Other sentences ranged from 12 to 18 months in prison along with one year of home confinement.

In a statement posted to its website Thursday, eBay said it is taking “responsibility for the misconduct of its former employees.”

“The company’s conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible,” CEO Jamie Iannone said. “From the moment eBay first learned of the 2019 events, eBay cooperated fully and extensively with law enforcement authorities. We continue to extend our deepest apologies to the Steiners for what they endured.”

“Since these events occurred, new leaders have joined the company and eBay has strengthened its policies, procedures, controls and training,” Iannone added. “eBay remains committed to upholding high standards of conduct and ethics and to making things right with the Steiners.”

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