Inside the eBay stalking scandal | 60 Minutes Archive
In a Nutshell
A Silicon Valley-based eBay security team stalked and terrorized Massachusetts couple Ina and David Steiner for months after their CEO and chief communications officer ordered staff to "crush" and "take down" the pair for critical coverage of the company. The campaign included threatening messages, live insects, a funeral wreath, and surveillance of their home, culminating in guilty pleas from seven employees—including five years in prison for the security director—but no criminal charges against the executives who incited the attacks.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
The online auction site eBay launched the e-commerce revolution when founded more than 20 years ago. Over the decades, it's drawn in 134 million users from mom-and-pop collectors on the hunt for bargains to small business owners. In 2022, users sold almost $74 billion worth of goods through eBay. Last month, buried in an otherwise dull annual financial disclosure, a note on page 105 hinted at a scandal inside the Silicon Valley giant. It refers to an inquiry from the US attorney about the stalking and harassment of the editor and publisher of an online newsletter at the hands of eBay employees.
Ina and David Steiner were met in Natick, Massachusetts, a quaint Boston suburb where the couple had enjoyed a quiet life until the summer of 2019. They loved eBay so much, they started a publication to help people who sell stuff on the auction site, and then found themselves the focus of a terror campaign. David described it as "psychological warfare" and "corporate terrorism" because they were terrorized, calling it "very calculated" and "very vicious."
"One of the things that we also learned was what sadistic pleasure these people took in terrorizing us."
The Steiners have been married for more than 30 years and work together from their home for more than 20 years. They publish a news website called e-commerce bytes. David handles the business side of things, and Ina does the reporting. They cover industry news, following what's happening and how it impacts sellers. People would write to them about problems with Amazon or eBay, and they wanted to be a conduit for sellers to tell their problems, share information, and give them a voice. Most of their 600,000 readers are sellers on eBay, Amazon, and Etsy. Industry observers would contact them with questions as there were certain things going on and Wall Street was very interested because these were public companies.
On the morning of August 8th, the Steiners were getting bombarded with sign-ups to crazy newsletters they never signed up for, including Sin City Fetish Night, The Satanic Temple, The Communist Party, and dozens of others. Somebody started harassing them on Twitter through direct messages with threats that were "shut up or else" and "as blatant as that." Three days later, the Steiners got a strange call from someone who left a voicemail saying they couldn't fulfill an order for a wet specimen, which turned out to be a pig fetus.
The Steiners reported every step to the police. After a police officer took a report, he stepped outside and found a package that looked like flesh and hair, which was a pig mask from the horror movie Saw. Over the next week, someone sent boxes of live cockroaches and spiders to the Steiners. Pornography was sent to their neighbors but addressed to David. On social media, the Steiners' home was listed as the site of yard sales and sex parties. A book about surviving the loss of a spouse, addressed to David, arrived at their doorstep, followed a few days later by an expensive funeral wreath.
"It was a death threat."
Police at first thought it might be a small-town prank. David installed more security cameras at their home. For 3 weeks, the threats and packages kept coming. When it would get dark out at night, Ina would really be terrified. The couple started sleeping in separate rooms to make sure that if someone did break in, at least one of them could either call the police or escape. The Steiners were afraid inside their house and afraid to leave it after David noticed a van and later a car following him.
David managed to get a photo of the license plate of the car following him. Natick Detective John Haswell was working the case with Sergeant Jason Sutherland. When they ran the license plate, it came back to a rental agency, and they contacted the rental agency and got the name of the renter, Veronica Zei. Mrs. Steiner searched the name and discovered that Zei works for eBay. Sergeant Sutherland tracked Veronica Zei's rental car to the Boston Ritz-Carlton and called her from the lobby, but Zei left town without talking to police.
Detective Haswell learned the funeral wreath sent to the Steiners was bought with a gift card from a grocery store in Silicon Valley, less than 8 miles away from eBay headquarters. He was able to get photographs of them purchasing the gift cards, and it was Veronica Zei again. The FBI took over. Ten months later, the US attorney in Massachusetts, Andrew Lelling, announced the indictments of six employees and contractors from eBay. The complaint alleges that the victims were targeted because eBay executives were unhappy with the coverage of eBay on the couple's website.
Investigators learned that in April of 2019, eBay's then CEO, Devin Wenig, shared a link to a post Ina had written about his annual pay. eBay's chief communications officer, Steve Wymer, wrote back, "We're going to crush this lady." About a month later, Wenig texted, "Take her down." Prosecutors say Steve Wymer later texted eBay security director, Jim Baugh, "I want to see ashes. As long as it takes, whatever it takes." Just a few days later, investigators say Baugh set up a meeting with his security staff at eBay's California headquarters, posted a map of Natick on the wall, and then dispatched a team to Boston.
Seven people who worked for eBay's safety and security unit, including two former cops and a former nanny, all pleaded guilty to stalking or cyberstalking charges. Senior security director Jim Baugh was sentenced to 5 years in prison. Veronica Zei was sentenced to a year of home confinement and probation. To date, eBay has not been charged with any crimes. The company said in a statement to 60 Minutes, "The conduct of the former employees was wrong, and it has cooperated fully with the government investigation."
Andrew Lelling says there was not enough evidence to file criminal charges against eBay's top executives, Devin Wenig or Steve Wymer. When asked about text messages like "Take her down" and "I want to see ashes, whatever it takes," Lelling noted that "People say things like that all the time, especially senior people in companies. It's not the same as I am knowingly joining a criminal conspiracy to cyberstalk a couple in Natick." The current US attorney has said the investigation into eBay is ongoing.
Jalise McDonough and Rosemary Scapicchio are representing the Steiners in a civil case against eBay and its former executives. Wymer deleted his text messages after a notice went out to everyone to say, "There's this criminal investigation. Preserve the evidence." Wymer immediately deletes everything. The former CEO, Devin Wenig, said in a statement to 60 Minutes that he was appalled at what happened and had he been aware of it at the time, he would have stopped it. Wenig resigned from eBay in September of 2019 with a $57 million exit package. Steve Wymer was fired for cause by eBay and now runs the Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley. He has said his texts were mischaracterized and that he learned of the employees' conduct only after the fact.
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