Couple Stalled by eBay Settle for $56 million

Seven years after eBay security staff harassed a pair of Massachusetts journalists in an attempt to get them to shut up, the Silicon Valley company and three former executives have agreed to pay $56 million to settle their claims.

The couple, David and Ina Steiner, announced the terms on their website on Monday evening. Tuesday eBay issued a statement confirmation of agreement. An eBay spokesman did not dispute the Steiners’ accounting.

“The course of action in 2019 is not representative of eBay’s culture or the thousands of employees around the world,” the company said.

In an unusual move, the terms of the settlement were not shrouded in secrecy. The Steiners said they will receive $46.15 million from eBay and that the company will give another $6 million “for charitable contributions to various non-profit organizations.”

Former eBay CEO Devin Wenig and two other former colleagues will pay the couple a total of $2.55 million. Mr. Wenig will also pay $1 million to a First Amendment charity named Ina Steiner, the announcement said.

Mr Wenig said in a statement that the harassment was “conducted secretly and without my knowledge”. He added that he was pleased that a “meaningful portion of my settlement” would go toward protecting press freedom. Lawyers for eBay and other former executives did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In a brief phone interview, the Steiners said the case was never just about money. One of their goals was to raise the alarm. Managers have tremendous power, they said, but are usually shielded from any fallout.

“Corporations have armies of security people and they can be armed,” said Ms. Steiner, who writes for the couple’s website, EcommerceBytes. They have been advocates for e-commerce sellers on eBay and other sites since the late 1990s dot-com boom.

In the spring of 2019, eBay came under pressure from an activist hedge fund. A handful of Ms. Steiner’s articles, including one about a bar Mr. Wenig had built on eBay’s campus, infuriated company executives, according to texts disclosed by prosecutors. Further details of the persecution were later revealed by journalists and the Steiners’ own lawsuit, which was filed in 2021.

“Take her down,” Mr. Wenig told his communications chief, who in turn told the head of the security team to do “whatever.”

The Steiners were bombarded with anonymous material including supplies of live cockroaches and a bloody pig mask. They were threatened online. Much of the material sent to them, including a funeral wreath and a book on surviving the loss of a husband, suggested imminent death. When the plot was derailed, the security team was on the verge of breaking into the Steiners’ garage to plant a tracker on their car.

In 2020, Andrew Lelling, then the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, called it “a systematic campaign, fueled by Fortune 500 company resources, to emotionally and psychologically terrorize this middle-aged couple in Natick, to discourage them from writing bad things online about eBay.”

He and other prosecutors charged seven members of the security team, who all pleaded guilty. Several served time in prison. But the Steiners were frustrated that no executives were charged, even though the couple said they set the campaign in motion.

In 2024, the Justice Department charged eBay with stalking, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. The charges were dropped under a deferred prosecution agreement. The company paid a $3 million fine to the government.

A recent paper, “Whatever it takes” showcases the Steiners’ efforts. The settlement doesn’t bring court drama, the couple said, but they expressed overall satisfaction.

“We wanted to find the truth,” Ms. Steiner said. “As a victim, you need to know: Why did this happen to me? And we wanted it to be a deterrent — to make business executives think twice before they say the words and set things in motion.”

In a strange twist, the total amount of the settlement is almost equal to what Mr. Wenig received in compensation when he left eBay in 2019: $57 million. That was after the plot was unraveled, but before prosecutors made it public.

The Steiners said that as part of the deal, eBay will issue a “strongly worded public statement” about the role of executives. In response to the question, an eBay spokesperson pointed to a statement from the company, which said it recognized “the unprofessional tone in internal communications demonstrated to varying degrees and numbers by Mr. Wenig, Mr. Wymer and Ms. Jones.”

The parties reached an initial settlement last winter, just before a trial was scheduled. That deal fell apart, and a new trial was scheduled for January 2027. The Steiners filed a notice in court Monday asking that their lawsuit be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be filed again.