Bizarre eBay stalking campaign with bloody pig mask spurs lawsuit

Seattle Times ^ | 7/21/2021 | Staff

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eBay and former top executives were sued for allegedly running a bizarre cyber-campaign to “terrorize, stalk and silence” a suburban Boston blogger and her husband who were critical of the e-commerce company.

Ina and David Steiner claim they were left psychologically damaged from the 2019 cyberstalking operation, which they say included macabre anonymous deliveries such as a bloody pig mask, surveillance by eBay security executives and phony online ads designed to send strangers to their home for sex parties.

eBay “engaged in a systematic campaign to emotionally and psychologically torture” the Steiners, of Natick, Massachusetts, according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston on Wednesday.

The couple, who put out the EcommerceBytes blog, alleges that former eBay chief executive officer Devin Wenig and former Senior Vice President Steve Wymer were enraged by their coverage of eBay and gave the company’s security team “carte blanche” to put an end to it.

The United States has charged seven former eBay employees with conspiracy in the matter. Five pleaded guilty, and two are seeking trials. Neither Wenig nor Wymer has been charged, and both have publicly denied wrongdoing. Wenig stepped down from eBay in September 2019 and received a $57 million exit package.

“The culture itself within Ebay fostered an almost cult-like atmosphere where employees were not only expected, but required, to fulfill company directives, regardless of criminality,” according to the lawsuit, in which the Steiners seek an unspecified amount in monetary damages and any profits the defendants might make off book or movie deals.

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Wenig is a Trump hater. His rhetoric was somewhat tempered in his statement below, but he is a Trump hater.

Here’s the memo eBay’s CEO just sent to staff in the wake of Donald Trump’s surprise victory

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It’s hard to believe these employees acted on their own