eBay to pay nearly $50 million over the harassment of a couple with cockroaches and a bloody pig mask

eBay Inc. has agreed to pay close to $50 million to a Massachusetts couple, David and Ina Steiner, to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of having made them the target of a harassment campaign orchestrated by former employees. According to details of the settlement released on Tuesday and reported by Associated Press, the couple received anonymous, disturbing deliveries that included live insects, a funeral wreath and a bloody pig Halloween mask, as well as threats.

The case was headed for trial when, in February, both sides announced a tentative agreement that they ultimately failed to finalize. Faced with that impasse, the Steiners asked a federal judge in June to return the case to the trial calendar, and the new settlement was reached this month.

The information available in this piece — a wire brief (AP) republished by Bloomberg — is very sparse and does not detail the exact terms of the payment, whether eBay admits liability, or how responsibility is apportioned between the company and the former employees involved. Nor does it specify the exact court or the procedural status beyond what is indicated.

For context: this litigation goes back to an episode that was widely documented at the time. The Steiners run EcommerceBytes, a newsletter specializing in e-commerce that had published coverage critical of eBay; the company, uncomfortable with those reports, used its then corporate security team to launch a campaign of surveillance and intimidation against the couple that included sending unsettling packages and dispatching staff to their home. That scandal, once it came to light publicly, led to federal charges against several former eBay employees, some of whom pleaded guilty, and coincided in time with the departure of the company's then chief executive, Devin Wenig, although eBay never officially linked the two events.

In short, the news confirms the financial outcome of a civil suit stemming from that case — a payment of close to $50 million after years of legal dispute — but the source text provides no further figures, no names of the former employees sued and no details on how the compensation will be distributed.