eBay and Top Officials Named in Federal Lawsuit - harassment, terrorizing

[Lani]

Back in 2019, there were some posts on Fogbow v.1 about some Ebay employees being arrested for harassing the publishers of an e-commerce blog. At the time, I wondered if it was about the Steiners and their EcommerceBytes, https://www.ecommercebytes.com/
Well, yes, yes it was.

The situation was much worse than what was originally disclosed.

- deliveries of live cockroaches and spiders, funeral wreath, book on grieving death of spouse, and a bloody pig mask
- sent pornographic magazines with Steiner's name on it to the neighbor's house
- planned to break into garage to install a GPS device on their car
- advertised things like yard sales at the Steiners' address & encouraged strangers to knock on the door
- posted on Craigslist inviting 'singles, couples and swingers' to come to the publisher's home to party each night
- Twitter posts criticizing the newsletter's content, posting of their home address, and threatening to visit them
- secretly surveilling the Steiners in their home. (They noticed the unusual behavior & reported it to local police, which resulted in the first arrests.)

This is the only article I can find so far. The lawsuit was filed in Boston this morning.

A Massachusetts couple have filed a federal lawsuit against eBay, accusing the e-commerce giant of subjecting them to a systemic campaign of cyberstalking and harassment in which former employees sent live spiders, a bloody pig mask and a funeral wreath to the victims' home.

David and Ina Steiner, from Natick, say in their 93-page complaint filed in Boston federal court on Wednesday that the Silicon Valley 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 Steiners, who run EcommerceBytes, an online newsletter focused on the e-commerce industry, say they found themselves on the receiving end of death threats, bizarre deliveries, and in-person surveillance from eBay workers.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... cials.html

And yes! There are plenty of text messages between the perpetrators!

[much ado]

The New York Times also had an article on this last September...

Inside eBay’s Cockroach Cult: The Ghastly Story of a Stalking Scandal

[Lani]

NYT won't let me see it

ETA: Never mind. Now it's getting a lot of attention. This article has a lot information: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202 ... news-site/

[somerset]

NYT won't let me see it

ETA: Never mind. Now it's getting a lot of attention. This article has a lot information: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202 ... news-site/

Here's a couple of excerpts from the NYT article. It's eye-opening:
(Ms. Zea was a low-level analyst employed as a contractor. Mr. Wymer was the Communications Chief, reporting to the CEO, Mr Wenig.

The two men shared an aggressive streak. Mr. Wenig had spent most of his career in East Coast financial media, as a lawyer and executive at Thomson Reuters, and he maintained a certain New York alpha quality. Before working as a technology spokesman, Mr. Wymer had spun for three Republican senators in Washington, and he kept up an interest in politics. When Representative John Lewis tweeted about the civic importance of getting in “good trouble, necessary trouble,” for instance, Mr. Wymer replied that he had “another view on how the USA should be governed. My view is equal to your view.”

On Sept. 18, Ms. Zea got a message from her placement agency: “We find it necessary to terminate your employment effective today.” She received no severance. Mr. Wymer was also fired. Mr. Wenig resigned later in the month, saying it was clear he “was not on the same page” as the eBay board. There was no hint of scandal. His exit package was $57 million.

Mr. Wenig and Mr. Wymer have no such worries. In June, Mr. Wenig was re-elected to the board of General Motors, a position that pays $317,000 a year. Mary Barra, GM’s chief executive, called the cyberstalking scandal “regrettable” but noted “it didn’t involve any GM business.”

Mr. Wymer has a new job, as the chief executive of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley. The chair of the board said the nonprofit was “aware” of what happened at eBay, but believes Mr. Wymer is “a leader with integrity” and was the unanimous choice for the job. A tweet from the organization announcing his hiring included as a hashtag Mr. Wymer’s signature phrase: Whatever It Takes. For the children of Silicon Valley in the bleak year 2020, that’s the new Golden Rule.

[Lani]

Quelle surprise! The people who carried out the orders from higher ups were fired, at least 5 of them are charged with felonies and are looking at serious prison time.

What's weird to me is why the Steiners were so hated by Ebay management. They just provide a newsletter about changes in the various online sales sites, website problems that pop up, tax changes, what's up with USPS/FedEx/UPS, etc. Yes, they provided information on problems with Ebay, changes in policies, etc. Just like they do with other ecommmerce companies. Since Amazon & Ebay are the largest companies, they get the majority of the articles.

[Phoenix520]

From the NYT article, it sounds as if the cut throat hedge fund that had just bought a chunk of eBay was looking to make changes. These mooks made a stupid panic decision that the Steiners could screw up their cozy gig at eBay; and alcohol was involved.

In January 2019, the temperature in Global Security and Resiliency went up even further. Elliott Management, a hedge fund considered merciless even by Wall Street standards, bought a chunk of eBay and asked for changes. Nobody was safe — especially the chief executive, Devin Wenig. The co-founder of another company that had earlier drawn the attention of Elliott said the experience of looking up the fund online was like “Googling this thing on your arm and it says, ‘You’re going to die.’”

As Mr. Wenig and other eBay executives tried to make nice with the hedge fund, they did not want to hear criticism of the company. That could cause trouble. And if some critic persisted? They needed to shut up. If necessary, they needed to be scared speechless.

Whether Ms. Steiner was breaking news about questionable expenditures, such as a pub eBay built on its campus, or marking more innocuous developments, Mr. Wenig seemed to find her existence infuriating. On May 31, 2019, she wrote that he had “promised to give sellers greater protection” from fraudulent buyers.

“Shockingly reasonable…” Mr. Wymer wrote to Mr. Wenig.

“I couldn’t care less what she says,” the C.E.O. responded, adding: “Take her down.”

However, I think it has more to do with this:

Did you think that your boss might be a psychopath? You might be on to something. About 1 percent of the population may qualify as having psychopathic behavior, while among senior executives, that rate climbs to 3.5 percent. This all may make sense, as psychopaths tend to be focused on status, money, and power. That’s not to say that someone who is focused on those three things is a psychopath; it’s just that psychopaths tend to be focused on them more than the average person. There is a term for people in executive positions that display psychopathic behaviors — “corporate psychopaths.”



The route to being a psychopathic senior executive may start early. Business majors are more likely to have psychopathic tendencies than other students. They are more likely to deceive others for personal gain. However, just because they are more likely to engage in deception doesn’t mean they endorse it as acceptable behavior. Interestingly, those same deceiving business students find it unethical to deceive others. This may be due to the psychopath’s belief that he has different rules to play by than others. He requires others to be ethical and loyal, while the psychopath feels no compunction to follow those same societal norms.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes ... paths/amp/