eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”

Technology@lemmy.world – 228 points – 6 months ago

eBay hit with $3M fine, admits to “terrorizing innocent people”::eBay must pay maximum fine for putting Massachusetts couple “through pure hell.”

eBay’s revenue in the last financial year was over $10 billion, I’m sure that $3 million fine will make sure they never terrorise innocents again.

From another article

All seven who participated in the harassment have been convicted. Baugh was sentenced to 57 months in prison in September 2022.

It was a small group of employees targeting one couple, and it looks like most of them will be going to prison.

While I agree that the $3m is chump change for eBay, the victims deserve the settlement, and some justice has been served.

It was ”a small group of employees” instigated by the CEO and CCO, who were never charged.

"Instigated" implying conspiracy that was not found to exist, or they would have been charged.

eBay's board found the same: https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-inc-issues-statement-regarding-indictments-of-previously-terminated-employees/

They're assholes, but there are no laws against being an asshole.

“Instigated” in the age-old “will no one rid me of this turbulent priest” sense.

They weren’t charged, only because laws have always been understood to afford a loophole of plausible deniability to those in power.

Which the CCO was not afforded. Strange zig-zagging lines to draw.

Always attribute to stupidity ... etc.

It's great to hear that the people responsible will actually do time for what they did

Usually when you hear about people at a corporation doing some shitty stuff all you hear about is fines

Probably because they’re employees, not management.

The then-Senior Director of Safety and Security for eBay got an almost 5 year prison sentence, and it seems he reported directly to the CEO. That sounds like management to me!

And yet the CEO is walking free, and the business is still in operation.

Please read the article before commenting.

Since corporations are people, surely we can jail the CEO and board and prevent them from doing any business for 24 months?

Honest question, this was a criminal proceeding, right?

Couldn't they now go after individuals through civil action, where burden of proof is lower, and damage claims can be pretty significant?

I don't really know, I suspect finding a legal team willing to go after ebay senior management may be challenging to find?

If you have civil and criminal causes of action, it’s often expedient to pursue the criminal one first, as it’s admissible as evidence in the civil case—the reverse isn’t usually true. I would be very surprised if there were not a settlement very soon, which unfortunately we will probably never hear about.

With the facts of the criminal case, I don’t think they would have any difficulty at all getting a legal team to go after EBay. It’s a risk/reward thing for them and the pockets they’d be going after are very deep.

The things the employees were convicted of doing are wild! If I’d read it in a book or saw it in a movie I’d call it ridiculous and unbelievable!

Yeah like secretly attaching a gps tracker to the victims car. These guys are psychopaths.

The former eBay employees turned the Steiners' world "upside-down through a never-ending nightmare of menacing and criminal acts," Levy said. That included "sending anonymous and disturbing deliveries," such as "a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig and a funeral wreath and live insects," the DOJ said. The intimidation also included publishing a series of "Craigslist posts inviting the public for sexual encounters at the victims’ home."

jesus

This is the best summary I could come up with:

eBay has agreed to pay $3 million—the maximum criminal penalty possible—after employees harassed, intimidated, and stalked a Massachusetts couple in retaliation for their critical reporting of the online marketplace in 2019.

“Today’s settlement holds eBay criminally and financially responsible for emotionally, psychologically, and physically terrorizing the publishers of an online newsletter out of fear that bad publicity would adversely impact their Fortune 500 company," Jodi Cohen, the special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Boston Division, said in a Justice Department press release Thursday.

eBay's harassment campaign against the couple, David and Ina Steiner, stretched for 18 days in August 2019 and was led by the company's former senior director of safety and security, Jim Baugh.

It started when then-CEO Devin Wenig and then-chief communications officer Steven Wymer decided to "take down" the Steiners after growing frustrated with their coverage of eBay in a newsletter called EcommerceBytes.

After sending tweets and DMs threatening to visit the couple's home, former eBay employees escalated the criminal activity by traveling to Massachusetts and installing a GPS tracker on the Steiners' car.

Cohen acknowledged that the settlement "cannot erase the significant distress this couple suffered" but said that the DOJ hopes slapping eBay with the maximum fine "will deter others from engaging in similar conduct.”

The original article contains 754 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

That's right, eBay -- stick to terrorizing guilty people next time.

Man, I hope anyone that showed up to that house for the publicized "sexual encounters" sue the hell out of ebay in additional law suits for blue balls and related depressing disspaointmemt. Oh, and also for gas money.