NATICK, MASS. (WHDH) - David and Ina Steiner reached a $55.7M settlement with eBay over a bizarre retaliation campaign that included online threats and shocking deliveries like a bloody pig mask, a book on grieving a spouse, and pornography sent to a neighbor in David’s name.
“I would say that from my perspective, it’s a relief, frankly,” David said. “This was a major Fortune 500 company that felt that this was acceptable to harass and try and, you know, influence a reporter’s reporting.”
The Steiners and federal prosecutors say eBay’s CEO in 2019 was outraged at the couple’s negative coverage of the online commerce giant in their industry newsletter called “Ecommerce-Bytes.” The CEO directed employees to stop the Steiners.
Now, eBay has agreed to pay the Natick couple over $46M, adding $6M in charitable contributions to non-profit organizations supporting free speech, and releasing a strongly worded statement about their now-former employees.
In that statement, the company wrote, “As we have long stated, what the Steiners were subjected to by former eBay employees in 2019 was wrong, reprehensible and should never have happened….This agreement is consistent with our commitment to fairly compensate the Steiners and fulfills our efforts to make things right.”
“They were, you know, a fly next to eBay, or you know, just a piece of grass in eBay’s lawn,” said Chris Murphy, the Steiners’ attorney. “And eBay came down with their full weight and resources, and Ina and David fought back and won.”
Seven former eBay workers pleaded guilty to criminal charges and received up to 57 months in jail for participating in the scheme, including some of them traveling to Natick to try to plant a GPS device on the Steiners’ car.
The couple said they’re glad the case is finally over and insist it wasn’t all about the money for them.
“We wanted answers, and we got we got as many answers as we could as to how this could have happened,” Ina said.
“We’re trying to send a message here that this is not acceptable behavior by a corporation, by anyone,” David said.
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