eBay Pays $56M to Couple Targeted in Cockroach Harassment Campaign

eBay will pay nearly $56 million to a Massachusetts couple who said the company tried to terrorize them into stopping their reporting with a campaign of threats, stalking, live cockroaches, and a bloody pig Halloween mask. The settlement, announced Tuesday, ends more than six years of criminal and civil litigation brought by David and Ina Steiner, founders of the e-commerce newsletter EcommerceBytes. The deal provides $48.7 million in compensation, plus another $7 million in charitable donations, including to First Amendment organizations, and contains no confidentiality provision. “David and I were on the same page that this settlement should and must be made public—as victims who want to prevent something like this from ever happening to anyone else, and as reporters who believe in transparency,” Ina Steiner said. “We hope that this case will serve as a deterrent.” The Steiners said senior eBay employees sought to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them” to “stifle their reporting on eBay.” Along with live cockroaches, they said they received spiders, a funeral wreath, and other disturbing deliveries. eBay again apologized, saying the conduct was “wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened.” Seven eBay employees received jail terms of up to five years over the campaign of harassment after criminal charges were brought in 2020.

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