The End of eBay? Biggest Scandal Ever? Ex Cops Mail Horrors from eBay HQ

Crazy but true! eBay management including two ex- police Captains sent journalists who criticized the company a bloody pig mask, live cockroaches, funeral wreaths, dirty magazines and the book "Surviving the Loss of a Spouse" to intimidate and silence those critical of the company.

Imagine you leave a bad review for a company. Instead of addressing the criticism the company uses their highly paid security team to try and intimidate you and shut you down. That's exactly what eBay did, they tried to cover it up, got caught and multiple employees now at the highest levels have been charged, and a major lawsuit has been launched against the company.
Ina and David Steiner run a blog out of their home in Boston they started it back in 1999 - ecommercebytes.com. They educate people in the world of online selling, and part of that initiative involved being critical of some of the policies at eBay.
Now take note eBay didn't sue them for libel, so it could be reasonably assumed that nothing they said was inaccurate or false.
But eBay seemingly didnt like what was being said and the then CEO, (who was allowed to resign and received a 57 million dollar severance package) sent messages directly to eBays security squad stating "Take her down" "Burn her down" "I want to see ashes, as long as it takes whatever it takes" Now because there were no specific directives the CEO himself evaded any criminal charges.
Anyway, top ranking members of the security team got on it and their plan to silence the Steiners was a long term intimidation campaign. Just some of the things they did to intimidate and silence the Steiners:

1. Mailed a blood covered pigs head - Inspired by the Godfather movie and the horse head?
2. Sent live spiders and cockroaches to their home
3. eBay flew their security team, first class from California to Boston, to rent cars and seemingly intimidate , stalk and trail the couple. Apparently a screwdriver was bought locally to try and break into the couples garage and install a tracking device on their car.
4. When Ina Steiner kept on reporting on eBay, she didn't cave, and good for her, her husband was sent a book entitled "Surviving the loss of a spouse" and a funeral wreath with the Steiners names. The plan seemingly now as Ina didn't stop reporting was to try and get David to stop his wife from criticizing eBay. David didn't cave either. So eBay retaliated by sending adult magazines in David's name to the neighbors address, to try and disgrace and humiliate him.
5. eBay employees created fake twitter handles and left violet messages like "do I have your attention now, c- word?" "U are sick motha f'ers…and every one will kno! U f'ing c-word ass b-word!"
Absolutely insane things were done to try and silence people who just made statements the company didn't like. The eBay employees then tried to cover everything up by suggesting to find a "friendly" cop in the local police, and provide false evidence to to lead the investigation away from them. Keep in mind two of the accused are ex-captains of the Santa Clara Police Dept.
So what happened? Well that security manager responsible for this mess was promoted to director of security operations and given a raise from $185k to $205K, this was back in June 2020, about 10 months after the cyberstalking campaign began and just before it became public.
Cut to today, after everything was found out and charges filed that defendant just received an 18 month jail sentence, 3 years of supervised release ad a $15,000 fine. Four others involved in the scheme have plead guilty and are awaiting sentencing. The Steiners are now suing eBay as these activities were seemingly condoned at the highest levels.
David Steiner was quoted "This has been an unbelievably difficult ordeal for my wife and I," said David Steiner. "Never did we imagine doing our jobs as journalists would lead to this. We want to protect the rights of reporters and their freedom of the press. We have endured enormous cruelty and abuse and feared for our lives. If this behavior can happen to us, it can happen to anyone."

eBay put out a statement last year: " An internal investigation found that, while (Then CEO) Mr. Wenig's communications were inappropriate, there was no evidence that he knew in advance about or authorized the actions that were later directed toward the blogger and her husband."

Brian Gilbert and Phillip Cooke, both ex- Captains of the Santa Clara police have been charged along with 3 others. Cooke received 18 months and a 15k fine.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/07/lawsuit-ebay-tried-to-terrorize-stalk-and-silence-couple-that-ran-news-site/

https://www.ecommercebytes.com/ Ina and David Steiners website

https://youtu.be/DkwQJO97oaM announcement of lawsuit