eBay and several of its former executives have agreed to pay $56 million (about £44 million) to settle a civil case brought by Ina and David Steiner, the married couple behind the e-commerce newsletter EcommerceBytes, who were subjected to a harrowing harassment campaign by eBay staff in 2019. The plot was allegedly orchestrated after senior executives grew angry at the couple's occasional critical coverage of the company, and it stands as one of the most extraordinary corporate scandals in e-commerce history, resulting in criminal convictions and a lengthy prison sentence for one former executive.

The 2019 campaign saw eBay staff run anonymous social media accounts to harass the couple and send them threatening letters and disturbing items in the post, including live spiders and cockroaches, a bloody pig mask, a funeral wreath and pornographic magazines; a plan to fit a GPS tracker to their car was attempted but failed, while another proposal to send a "Samoan gang" to their home was never carried out. Of the $56 million settlement, $46.15 million comes from eBay itself, with former CEO Devin Wenig contributing $2 million, ex-executive Wendy Jones $500,000 and former executive Steve Wymer $50,000, alongside further payments to charities. Seven former eBay employees, including ex-security chief James Baugh, were criminally charged in 2022 and pleaded guilty, with Baugh sentenced to nearly five years in prison; eBay has apologised, calling the conduct "wrong, reprehensible" and not representative of its culture.