Underdog Stories / General
What happened in the eBay harassment case against the Steiners?
What happened in the eBay harassment case against the Steiners? A wrong guess led to threats, surveillance, convictions and a $55.7 million deal.
By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · August 26, 2026
A funeral wreath arrived at Ina and David Steiner’s home in Natick, Massachusetts. They had not ordered it. By then, an unwanted delivery was rarely just an unwanted delivery.
What happened in the eBay harassment case against the Steiners? In 2019, eBay security staff targeted the couple over Ina’s reporting and a false theory about an online critic. They sent threats and disturbing packages, then followed David. The Steiners helped police trace the campaign to eBay. Seven people pleaded guilty, the company paid a criminal penalty, and a civil settlement followed.
Why did eBay target Ina and David Steiner?
The Steiners had run EcommerceBytes since 1999. Ina reported on the companies that online sellers depended on. David published the site. Its readers could discuss the stories beneath them, including stories about eBay.
That work made some people at eBay angry. In the episode “5: The Bizarre Story of the Steiners and FidoMaster,” Everything Sucks: A True Crime-ish Investigative Podcast host Shanique Woodley describes how strange that was to the Steiners. Ina had covered eBay for two decades. She had no reason to think its security staff would be watching her house.
The company’s admitted account shows that the anger had been building. In April 2019, after a story about then-CEO Devin Wenig’s pay, chief communications officer Steve Wymer wrote, “we are going to crush this lady.” Other messages complained about Ina’s coverage. Employees also watched the comments beneath her stories.
On August 1, Ina published a piece questioning eBay’s lawsuit against Amazon. Wenig messaged Wymer that if they were going to “take her down,” this was the time. Wymer replied, “On it.” He then passed the message to Jim Baugh, eBay’s senior security director. Within days, Baugh’s team was planning the campaign.
Those messages matter. They show anger moving from senior offices toward security staff. They do not prove that Wenig knew the team would send insects or stalk the Steiners. He, Wymer and another former executive, Wendy Jones, were not criminally charged.
Who was FidoMaster, and why was the name on their fence?
FidoMaster was an online critic of eBay. The name appeared on the Steiners’ fence in June 2019, painted by Brian Gilbert, a retired police captain who worked in eBay security. To the couple, it was a baffling act of vandalism.
Inside eBay, the name carried more weight. A security report had linked FidoMaster’s posts to Ina’s work. Baugh went further: he told Wymer that the critic might be David Steiner or someone close to Ina. The company’s admitted account calls that claim false.
It was an extraordinary guess to act on. The Steiners did not know who FidoMaster was, Woodley says. She asks the plain question the security team skipped: “Why couldn’t they just ask them?”
The painted fence came first. The larger campaign took shape in August, after the messages about Ina’s Amazon story. According to eBay’s admitted account, the team wanted to disrupt the Steiners’ publishing and change how their site covered eBay. Baugh was also trying to learn who stood behind the critical account.
What did eBay employees send to the Steiners?
The deliveries became hard to dismiss as pranks. The Steiners received a bloody pig mask, live insects and a book about losing a spouse. A funeral wreath turned up. Someone arranged for a fetal pig to be sent to their home.
Woodley begins with the couple’s confusion over that last item. A message said a “wet specimen” was ready. David called to find out what it meant. The answer was a pig fetus preserved for study. He called the police.
The harassment reached beyond packages. Stephanie Popp, an eBay security manager, used a fake Twitter account to send Ina hostile messages. The account later posted the couple’s address. A Craigslist ad invited strangers to their house for sex.
Then there were the pizzas. One order arrived at about 4:30 in the morning. Woodley recounts David watching a man approach the house with a dark case and fearing the worst. The man opened it and set down pizza boxes. He was a delivery driver, doing the job someone else had sent him to do.
“The fear itself was part of the operation.”
Woodley says David kept checking the home’s security cameras at night. The couple also tried to learn who had placed the orders, without getting the sender details they needed. The campaign made ordinary acts feel dangerous. “The fear itself was part of the operation,” Woodley says.
How did the Steiners find out eBay was behind it?
The Steiners noticed vehicles near their home. When David thought a black van was following him, a friend got a photograph of its plate, Woodley says. The image was too unclear to identify it.
David kept looking. Later, he photographed a silver SUV he believed was following him and gave police a clear plate number. Woodley describes him reaching the police station shaken and struggling to breathe. This time, the lead held.
Police traced the rental vehicle to Veronica Zea, an analyst working with eBay’s security group. The name shocked Ina. She knew eBay as a company she reported on, yet had no idea why someone tied to it would be near her home.
The paper trail widened. Federal records place Zea with Baugh and other security staff in Natick. On August 15, members of the team tried to put a GPS tracker on the Steiners’ car. The car was locked in the garage. David had seen enough of their surveillance to call police.
Baugh’s team tried to cover its tracks. When a Natick detective called Zea’s phone, Baugh answered and pretended to be her husband. Staff deleted digital evidence. Baugh also had a false report prepared that portrayed the Steiners as threats to eBay. The Natick investigation drew in the FBI.
One part of the plan was especially cold. The team meant to offer the Steiners help with the harassment it was causing. Gilbert did call them as an eBay employee offering assistance. The Steiners referred him to Natick police.
Were eBay executives charged in the case?
Seven former eBay employees or contractors pleaded guilty to federal offenses tied to the campaign. Baugh received 57 months in prison, and David Harville received 24 months. Other members of the team received prison terms or home confinement.
The criminal consequences for the company were separate. In January 2024, eBay entered a deferred prosecution agreement, admitted a detailed account of its conduct and agreed to pay a $3 million criminal penalty. The agreement also required an independent compliance monitor for three years.
Wenig, Wymer and Jones were not among the seven people criminally charged. eBay’s July 2026 statement acknowledged an “unprofessional tone” in their internal messages, while condemning the employees who carried out the harassment. The distinction matters: the messages are part of the record, and so is the limit of the criminal case.
How did the Steiners’ lawsuit end?
Ina and David sued eBay and others in 2021. A trial was set for March 2026, and the parties reached a tentative settlement just before it began. That deal fell apart. The case went back toward trial.
On July 27, 2026, the Steiners announced a final settlement worth $55.7 million in total commitments. Of that, $48.7 million was compensation for the couple. eBay agreed to pay $46.15 million of the compensation; Wenig, Jones and Wymer agreed to pay the rest. Another $7 million was pledged to charities.
The figures are public, and the agreement has no confidentiality clause. That corrects the uncertainty Woodley voices near the end of the episode, when she says she has seen a figure around $56 million but does not know the terms. The final number includes charitable gifts; it is not all money paid to the Steiners.
The couple can speak about what happened. That includes the detail that first meant nothing to them: a strange name on a white fence, left by a man who had flown across the country to write it.
The full episode of Everything Sucks: A True Crime-ish Investigative Podcast is on Underdog Podcasts, with the rest of the network's shows.
People also ask
Did the Steiners know who FidoMaster was?+
Woodley says they did not. FidoMaster was an online eBay critic whose posts had caught the attention of company staff. Security director Jim Baugh falsely suggested that the person was David Steiner or someone close to Ina. The name appeared on the couple’s fence months before they learned why eBay staff cared about it.
Was Devin Wenig convicted in the eBay harassment case?+
No. Wenig, eBay’s former CEO, was not criminally charged. His messages about Ina Steiner appear in the company’s admitted account of the case, and he agreed to make a personal payment under the 2026 civil settlement. Seven former employees or contractors who took part in the campaign pleaded guilty.
How much did the Steiners receive from the eBay settlement?+
The July 2026 agreement provides $48.7 million in compensation to Ina and David Steiner. That includes $46.15 million from eBay and $2 million from former CEO Devin Wenig, with the balance from two other former executives. The widely reported $55.7 million total also counts $7 million in charitable commitments.
How did police connect the harassment to eBay?+
David Steiner photographed a vehicle he believed was following him and gave police a readable license plate. Investigators traced the rental to Veronica Zea, who worked with eBay’s security group. Police and federal investigators then followed evidence of the team’s travel, messages and efforts to hide what it had done.
Sources
- 1.USA v. eBay Inc. — Deferred Prosecution Agreement and Statement of Facts
- 2.eBay Inc. to Pay $3 Million in Connection with Corporate Cyberstalking Campaign
- 3.Two Former eBay Executives Sentenced to Prison for Cyberstalking
- 4.eBay and Execs Settle Cyberstalking Case for $55.7 Million
- 5.eBay Statement Regarding Agreement with Ina and David Steiner