You thought PayPal was bad? eBay security team harassed and cyberstalked a newletter-writing couple because they were critical of the company

[Dan Druff]

This story seems like something out of a bad "Law & Order" episode, but it's real life.

David and Ina Steiner, a couple in their 50s from Natick, Massachusetts, have a long-running eCommerce newsletter/website, which dates back to the 1990s. When the newsletter became increasingly critical of eBay in the mid-late 2010s, eBay's security team decided it was time to take action to silence them.



However, they didn't receive the ominous legal threats you'd expect. Instead, members of the team engaged in a campaign of cyberstalking, harassment, threats, phony ads with their address, and merchandise (including dead animals) shipped to their home.

Here's the overall story: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/07/...ry-first-time/

Anonymous and profane demands that the couple stop reporting about eBay; the publication of their home address on Twitter and threats to visit them there; the delivery of live insects and a funeral wreath; Craigslist posts inviting all comers to sexual encounters at their home; a black van that followed the husband as he drove around Natick, and so much more.

The downfall of the harassers was their overaggression with physically following David Steiner. After doing this several times in rented vans, Steiner finally got a clear picture of a license plate, and they traced it back to an eBay employee who had recently flown into Boston for the duration of the harassment period.

Philip Cooke, the former senior manager of Security Operations for eBay’s Global Security Team, was sentenced to 18 months in prison. It was the first sentencing of anyone involved in the case. Cooke was the leader of the harassment scheme, but was allegedly doing so at the direction of his boss, James Baugh, who is awaiting trial.

Several others have pled guilty, and will be sentenced shortly. Surprisingly, three of the seven people arrested and convicted were young women.

There's also a pending civil suit over this. eBay looks particularly bad because they actually promoted Cooke after their investigation of the matter, despite apparent knowledge of his role in the scheme. Cooke was also a former Santa Clara police officer.

Given the guilty pleas in the criminal case, the high level figures involved, and the promotion of Cooke, I predict a nice settlement for the couple. They deserve it.

Do you hate eBay even more now?

[Dan Druff]

More info about the case, including text messages between Cooke, his boss James Baugh, and another former Santa Clara cop named Brian Gilbert:

https://www.svvoice.com/former-santa...nt-conspiracy/

[Dan Druff]

Here's the official statement from the DOJ regarding Cooke's guilty plea:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/f...lking-campaign

It is alleged that in August 2019, the defendants executed a three-part harassment campaign against the Natick couple. Among other things, several of the defendants ordered anonymous and disturbing deliveries to the victims’ home, including a preserved fetal pig, a bloody pig Halloween mask and a book on surviving the loss of a spouse.

As part of the second phase of the campaign, some of the defendants allegedly sent private Twitter messages and public tweets criticizing the newsletter’s content and threatening to visit the victims in Natick. The charging documents allege that Cooke, Baugh, Gilbert, and Popp planned these messages to become increasingly disturbing, culminating with “doxing” the victims (i.e., publishing their home address). It is alleged that the same group intended then to have Gilbert, a former Santa Clara police captain, approach the victims with an offer to help stop the harassment that the defendants were secretly causing, in an effort to promote good will towards eBay.

Interesting. So this Gilbert guy was supposed to swoop in like a hero, pretending to be representing eBay and on their side, who would then "stop" the harassers, who in reality were his accomplices. Apparently the hope was that the couple would be fooled by this, and feel better about eBay as a company for helping them.

Dumb plan. Pretty sure they'd have seen right through it, if it got to this stage. Sounds like this whole thing was put together by morons. They'd have been better off just quietly telling the couple that eBay is behind it, and that nobody will ever believe them if they attempt to report it. That would have been more effective. Also, LOL at repeatedly following David Steiner, even after it became clear Steiner was trying to get pictures of the plates.

[Dan Druff]

Here's the most detailed article I found so far. It's in the NY Times.

It explains a lot more, and much of this info came from one of the female conspirators, Veronica Zea, who is 26.



https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/t...g-scandal.html


Two high level eBay executives, CEO Devin Wenig and communications director Steve Wymer, were apparently infuriated with the Steiners, for reasons which aren't clear. For some reason their small newsletter was really irritating the eBay top brass, despite not doing anything particularly offensive besides being critical.

This led the eBay security team to erroneously believe that a Twitter troll named "Fidomaster", who routinely bashed eBay, was in cahoots with the Steiners to make the company look bad. Thus, a very clumsy plan was born to figure out Fidomaster's identity, and harass both him and the Steiners into submission. However, Fidomaster never took the bait (they tried to trick him into appearing at a hotel to get a "thumb drive which is incriminating against eBay executives"), and they instead just went forward with harassing the Steiners instead, figuring he was closely associated with them anyway.

Apparently comms director Wymer wrote at one point, "Ms. Steiner and Fidomaster have seemingly dedicated their lives to erroneously trashing us. I genuinely believe these people are acting out of malice and ANYTHING we can do to solve it must be explored. Whatever. It. Takes."

At this point, Wymer and Wenig have not been charged, but they're being sued.

James Baugh decided to pattern the harassment of the Steiners after the 1988 movie "Johnny Be Good", which featured scenes of a football coach enduring various forms of harassing deliveries sent to his house. Baugh was apparently obsessed with movies, and required employees to repeatedly watch clips of various films which he felt were relevant to their experiences at the company, or to their loyalty. What a psycho.

Read the NY Times article. It's a very interesting story.

[Dan Druff]

One of the nastier females in the scheme was Stephanie Popp, who is 32.

Popp is said to have created a fake account on Twitter of a scary Samoan dude, who started threatening Ina Steiner, claiming that her articles were ruining his sales. Popp wrote at one point, "I guess im goin to have to get ur attention another way bitch…"

After Steiner received a bloody pig's head in the mail, Popp wrote (as the Samoan dude), "DO I HAVE UR ATTENTION NOW?"

Popp also is said to have written, "wen u hurt our bizness u hurt our familys… Ppl will do ANYTHING 2 protect family!!!!", implying that this badass Samoan dude was going to harm them for what they were writing.

What a fucking cunt. She pled guilty, and is awaiting sentencing. She appears to be highly involved in the scheme, working alongside Baugh and Cooke.

Veronica Zea, who cooperated with the NY Times, of course paints herself as almost another victim, afraid to say no to her evil superiors However, it appears Zea went to Boston several times to help harass the Steiners, and she was the driver on some of the occasions when they were being followed. The rental car was in her name. I do believe she was the low man (er, woman) on this harassment totem pole, but she willingly engaged in fucking with this couple. I'm guessing she might get probation, though. I hope that Popp bitch gets real jail time, and same with that psycho James Baugh.

Too bad the two executives seem to have skated free. Par for the course.

[Walter Sobchak]

Ebay has always sucked. Fuck ebay.

Agree the executives should suffer consequences for this too.

[Entropy]

Here's the most detailed article I found so far. It's in the NY Times.

It explains a lot more, and much of this info came from one of the female conspirators, Veronica Zea, who is 26.



https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/26/t...g-scandal.html


Two high level eBay executives, CEO Devin Wenig and communications director Steve Wymer, were apparently infuriated with the Steiners, for reasons which aren't clear. For some reason their small newsletter was really irritating the eBay top brass, despite not doing anything particularly offensive besides being critical.

This led the eBay security team to erroneously believe that a Twitter troll named "Fidomaster", who routinely bashed eBay, was in cahoots with the Steiners to make the company look bad. Thus, a very clumsy plan was born to figure out Fidomaster's identity, and harass both him and the Steiners into submission. However, Fidomaster never took the bait (they tried to trick him into appearing at a hotel to get a "thumb drive which is incriminating against eBay executives"), and they instead just went forward with harassing the Steiners instead, figuring he was closely associated with them anyway.

Apparently comms director Wymer wrote at one point, "Ms. Steiner and Fidomaster have seemingly dedicated their lives to erroneously trashing us. I genuinely believe these people are acting out of malice and ANYTHING we can do to solve it must be explored. Whatever. It. Takes."

At this point, Wymer and Wenig have not been charged, but they're being sued.

James Baugh decided to pattern the harassment of the Steiners after the 1988 movie "Johnny Be Good", which featured scenes of a football coach enduring various forms of harassing deliveries sent to his house. Baugh was apparently obsessed with movies, and required employees to repeatedly watch clips of various films which he felt were relevant to their experiences at the company, or to their loyalty. What a psycho.

Read the NY Times article. It's a very interesting story.

Sorry I don't buy this story. If i'm wrong I sincerely apologize to all who are offended.

Hmmm so CEO Devin Wenig and the Steiner's (and probably most of their respective families and close friends) are members of the tight nit NY NJ Jewish community?
Steve Wymer, not Jewish has alot of money. Can easily settle a high six, low seven figure payout.

"Two high level eBay executives, CEO Devin Wenig and communications director Steve Wymer, were apparently infuriated with the Steiners, for reasons which aren't clear. For some reason their small newsletter was really irritating the eBay top brass, despite not doing anything particularly offensive besides being critical."

Hold up, they didn't both spontaneously become outraged and decide to attack the Steiners over dumb shit. One pitched the idea to the other, ratcheted up the fake outrage and probably nudged the other along.

Blahahahaha "For reasons which aren't clear. For some reason..." No reason at all huh.
Bullshit
I suspect the Steiners fell on hard times (newsletter lol) and thru acquaintances arranged this elaborate ruse to squeeze ebay out of a few shekels and maybe even Steve Wymer.
Cliffs
CEO Wenig gets the ball rolling against the Steiners, nudges Wymer and the underlings along. Since this is from the very top (CEO) they go full retard and end up going to jail.
The Steiners will eventually get a nice payout, Wymer and Ebay will get a haircut. A couple underlings got fucked but you can't have an omelet without cracking some eggs.


Easy mark, so fucking pwned.

[Dan Druff]

BUMP

The Steiners are proceeding with their lawsuit against eBay and its executives who allowed this to occur, and in fact have amended it based upon new information that has come out.

Apparently eBay acknowledged via a Power Point presentation to the DOJ in March 2021 that there was criminal behavior, and begged the department not to criminally charge the company. However, in March 2023 it came out that indeed the DOJ has gone forward with criminally investigating eBay. This has been added to the Steiners' lawsuit, including info from the Power Point.

Also, eBay has set aside $64 million to pay for all of this, which includes both their eventual settlement/loss to the Steiners and their likely fine by the feds.

So this is going to cost eBay a fortune, all because some idiots wanted to stop a tiny newsletter that almost nobody read.

What morons.



Article about recent adjustments to lawsuit: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/...ized-tortured/

Article about the criminal investigation against eBay and the $64 million: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/...stalking-case/