eBay agreed to pay nearly $50 million to couple sent cockroaches, bloody
pig mask
[July 29, 2026] By
LEAH WILLINGHAM
BOSTON (AP) — eBay Inc. agreed to pay almost $50 million to a
Massachusetts couple who said former employees of the company targeted
them with threats and bizarre anonymous deliveries — including live
insects, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig Halloween mask, according to
settlement details released Tuesday.
The parties reported reaching a tentative settlement in February as the
case was headed to trial, but they were unable to finalize it. David and
Ina Steiner asked a federal judge in June to restore the case to the
trial calendar and reached a new settlement this month.
The agreement with the Steiners, founders of EcommerceBytes, a
newsletter covering the e-commerce industry, includes an additional $7
million in charitable donations, including to organizations supporting
First Amendment rights. The settlement contains no confidentiality
provision, allowing the Steiners to discuss the case publicly.
“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 Tuesday in an email response to
questions from The Associated Press. “We hope that this case will serve
as a deterrent.”
The settlement resolves more than six years of criminal and civil
proceedings stemming from the harassment campaign. In their 2021 lawsuit
filed in Boston federal court, the Steiners said that the company
engaged in a conspiracy to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture,
terrorize, stalk and silence them” in order to “stifle their reporting
on eBay.” The Natick residents, who report on the e-commerce industry in
their newsletter, said they were subjected to cyberstalking, death
threats and in-person surveillance by former eBay workers.
Escalating pressure
Ina Steiner said the campaign began with threatening direct messages on
social media before escalating into anonymous deliveries of live
cockroaches and spiders, a funeral wreath, a bloody pig Halloween mask
and a book about surviving the death of a spouse. The employees also
sent pornographic magazines with David Steiner’s name to a neighbor’s
home and planned to install a GPS device on the couple’s car.
She said she did not initially know who was behind it or why.
“I could not conceive that a company I had been covering for the past
two decades had tried to terrorize us into stopping our reporting,” she
said.
When the lawsuit was filed, the company said “the misconduct of these
former employees was wrong,” and that it would “do what is fair and
appropriate to try to address what the Steiners went through.”
eBay reiterated its apology Tuesday, saying, “What the Steiners were
subjected to by former eBay employees in 2019 was wrong, reprehensible
and should never have happened.” The company also acknowledged “the
unprofessional tone in internal communications” by former CEO Devin
Wenig, former Chief Communications Officer Steve Wymer and former Senior
Vice President Wendy Jones.
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The eBay app icon is seen on a smartphone, Feb. 28, 2023, in Marple
Township, Pa. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
 The company said the conduct “is not
representative of eBay’s culture” and said it has since changed
leadership and strengthened its policies, procedures and ethics
training.
In 2020, federal prosecutors charged seven former eBay employees,
alleging they carried out a coordinated harassment campaign against
the couple after becoming angered by coverage in the couple’s online
newsletter. Most of the defendants pleaded guilty to charges
including conspiracy and cyberstalking and were later sentenced to
prison terms or home confinement.
In 2024, eBay Inc. agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty under
a deferred prosecution agreement with federal authorities.
A ‘painful, life-changing experience’
Under the settlement, the Steiners will receive $48.7 million in
compensation, including $46.15 million from eBay, $2 million from
former CEO Wenig, $500,000 from former executive Jones and $50,000
from former executive Wymer.
The company will fund $6 million in charitable contributions to
various nonprofit organizations, with Wenig contributing an
additional $1 million to a charity dedicated to protecting First
Amendment rights in Ina Steiner's name.
In a statement, Steiner attorney Christopher Murphy cited the
recovery amount, personal payments by former executives, a
commitment for $7 million to go to nonprofits and the absence of a
confidentiality provision in a system where “wrongdoers too often
hide their misdeeds by dangling compensation in front of those they
victimized and trading that compensation for confidentiality or an
NDA.”
Protecting journalists and publishers and deterring corporate
misconduct were goals from the beginning, he said. “We believe this
resolution sends a clear message that corporations and their
executives cannot engage in this type of misconduct without facing
significant consequences," said Murphy, of Massachusetts-based
Scalli Murphy Law.
Ina Steiner said she and her husband hoped that “some good will come
out of this painful, life-changing experience.”
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