How eBay’s Stalking Scandal Finally Ended

In August of 2019, employees of a $50 billion company began terrorizing a middle-aged couple in Natick, Massachusetts: live cockroaches in the mail, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath, strangers knocking at all hours after fake Craigslist ads. David and Ina Steiner ran EcommerceBytes, a small trade blog for online sellers. Their tormentor was eBay.
This week, the story that began with "we are going to crush this lady" finally got a price tag. eBay agreed to pay the Steiners $46 million, with former CEO Devin Wenig adding $2 million more, former SVP Wendy Jones $500,000, and former communications chief Steve Wymer $50,000. Add $7 million in charitable contributions, a million of it made in Ina Steiner's name to a First Amendment charity.
How does a Fortune 500 company end up running an interstate harassment campaign against two bloggers? We walk through the whole arc: the activist hedge fund breathing down eBay's neck, the CEO enraged by a story about his $18 million pay package, and Jim Baugh, the security chief who made staff watch Meet the Fockers "circle of trust" clips, left a knife stabbed in an office chair, and took the C-suite's "whatever it takes" literally. His team's plan ran from threatening messages and mailed spiders to a "white knight" rescue scheme, executed so badly that the crowbar for the break-in went on the company credit card.
Then the law. The 15 federal counts against Baugh and David Harville: conspiracy, interstate stalking, stalking through facilities of interstate commerce, witness tampering, destruction of evidence. The guilty pleas, Baugh's 57 months, and the executives who were never charged at all. Wenig left with a $57 million severance package his own board never clawed back.
And finally the civil case that just ended. The Steiners sued eBay, Wenig, Wymer, Jones and Baugh: intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligent hiring and supervision, the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, defamation, trespass, and a ratification theory arguing that failing to discipline the conduct blessed it. Plus the strangest subplot: Baugh's letter of contrition that turned out to contain classified information, the Justice Department's protective order, and the deal that ended everything. The man who ran the operation waived the Fifth to testify against his old bosses, right up until eBay decided it would rather pay than face a jury.
eBay's corporate motto, for the record, is still "People are basically good."
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Cockroaches, a pig mask, a war
(00:57) The Steiners and their blog
(01:58) eBay's C-suite under pressure
(02:48) Jim Baugh, corporate maniac
(04:32) The article that set them off
(07:05) The harassment plan, in buckets
(09:40) Very bad at crime
(10:56) The 15 federal counts
(11:58) Sentences, and who skated
(12:55) The Steiners' civil suit
(14:41) Classified letters, Fifth Amendment
(16:39) Baugh flips
(17:11) The $46 million settlement
(17:43) Where they all landed
(19:10) EagleTeam: need a lawyer?
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Sorry, occupational hazard: This is not legal advice, nor can I give you legal advice. I AM NOT YOUR LAWYER. Sorry! Everything here is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Nothing here should be construed to form an attorney-client relationship. Also, some of the links in this post may be affiliate links, meaning, at no cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. But if you click, it really helps me make more of these videos! All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes. See Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, 276 F.Supp.3d 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Equals Three, LLC v. Jukin Media, Inc., 139 F. Supp. 3d 1094 (C.D. Cal. 2015).