eBay’s bizarre cyberstalking saga ends with a $56 million settlement

eBay and three former executives will pay $55.7 million as part of a settlement with a Massachusetts couple targeted with a bizarre harassment and cyberstalking campaign in 2019, as reported earlier by CNBC. The settlement will resolve a lengthy legal saga that revealed how eBay’s former executives sent live insects, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, and other strange items to David and Ina Steiner over their newsletter’s coverage of eBay.

The Steiners, who operate the EcommerceBytes newsletter, sued eBay and its former executives — including ex-CEO Devin Wenig — in 2021. The lawsuit accused the company and its executives of launching a coordinated effort to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence” the Steiners in an attempt to “stifle” their eBay-related reporting.

The Department of Justice charged seven former eBay employees in connection with the harassment campaign in 2020, all of whom have been convicted. eBay agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty related to the case in 2024. Wenig wasn’t charged and says that he had no knowledge of the harassment.

“As we have long stated, what the Steiners were subjected to by former eBay employees in 2019 was wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened,” eBay says in a statement on its website. “We condemn, in the strongest terms possible, the employees who perpetrated and pled guilty to criminal charges for the misconduct against Ina and David Steiner.”

The $55.7 million settlement will include $46.15 million from eBay, $2 million from Wenig, $500,000 from former global operations SVP Wendy Jones, and $50,000 from former chief communications officer Steve Wymer. eBay will also donate $6 million to nonprofit organizations.