
Six eBay executives and employees charged over alleged cyberstalking campaign - bbatsell
https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/06/15/ebay-employees-arrested-u-s-attorney-andrew-lelling-cyberstalking/
======
rideontime
> Two unnamed executive are included in the complaint that had roles above
> Baugh.

eBay just released a statement[0] which alludes to both the Chief
Communications Officer and the CEO (!) having been involved.

edit: Another article[1] provides more details, including that "an eBay
executive told Baugh that he wanted to 'crush' those responsible for the
newsletter while another executive told Baugh to 'take her down.'" One of
these must be the "inappropriate communications" by the CEO, Devin Wenig,
mentioned in eBay's statement.

edit 2: Still more details in another[2] article, including quotes from
communications between "Executive 1" and "Executive 2."

[0] [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ebay-inc-issues-statement-
reg...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ebay-inc-issues-statement-
regarding-162400706.html)

[1] [https://natick.wickedlocal.com/news/20200615/6-former-
ebay-e...](https://natick.wickedlocal.com/news/20200615/6-former-ebay-
employees-face-federal-charges-after-extensive-campaign-of-harassment-against-
natick-couple)

[2] [https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/15/metro/six-former-
ebay...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/15/metro/six-former-ebay-
employees-charged-federal-cyberstalking-case-targeting-natick-couple/)

~~~
hogFeast
This does not surprise me.

Some CEOs are incredibly thin-skinned, they hire a bunch of people who usually
got kicked out of the police after they harassed/beat someone, and then self-
destruct with their own personal army when they can't handle the heat (you
will get criticised daily).

Btw, something that was coincident with this (I believe) was the activist
campaign against EBay...again, the number of executives who self-destruct when
they see proof that they are bad at their job is significant (I wouldn't like
to venture a guess at a proportion but I have seen this 10+ times).

Just imo, the problem is always lack of oversight. Boards not really asking
whether the executives are up to the job, fat expense accounts with lots of
these ex-police nutjobs stalking people, it is just total madness. Companies
become captured by these executives.

(I used to know a guy who ran a relatively small fund but used to short sell
frauds, mainly accounting as the guy used to be an accountant. He had to go to
great lengths to hide what he was doing because the second a company found
out, they would send people to wait outside his office/follow him/etc. and
this is just a nobody guy running a small fund in a mid-tier financial city
i.e. not London, or New York, or HK...I call these executives the Harvard
Business School Al-Qaeda, truly dangerous people).

~~~
cma
Tesla/Elon got away with what looks like swatting a former employee, and makes
use of sketchy freelance sketchy private investigators.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
I remember there was a claim against a former employee at tesla. And of course
companies have a lot of money and power that could be leveraged against an
employee, but there are always two sides. It would be big news if tesla did
something like that, can you point to a story about that?

~~~
arkades
As another poster included:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-
elon...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-
tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp?utm_source=url_link)

“ An anonymous caller had contacted the company to say Tripp was planning a
mass shooting at the Gigafactory. When the police confronted Tripp that
evening, he was unarmed and in tears. He said he was terrified of Musk and
suggested the billionaire might have called in the tip himself.”

~~~
Wolve
Just what? That's so messed up. I didn't realize situations like this actually
happen. I'm shocked.

~~~
vkou
This has been discussed here in the past, but since it's Musk's (Who can do no
wrong) word against some nobody's, it has never gotten much prominence.

~~~
jacobush
It's very sad - if anything, his fans, should for at least _pragmatic_ reasons
keep him accountable, or he will self destruct before he can achieve the Mars
Colony.

------
waterfowl
These are the newsletters in question. Looks like a normal niche trade
community kind of site.

[https://www.ecommercebytes.com/about/](https://www.ecommercebytes.com/about/)

Imagine being a (literally) mom and pop internet newsletter and having a giant
come after you personally w/ lots of malice. Reminds me of nissan computer
getting arm twisted by the datsun motor company.

~~~
awakeasleep
I was excited to read what articles so touched the nerves of eBay executives-
but there is a lot of content on the site.

Anyone find any that were especially critical or funny?

~~~
extrapolate
Paragraph 18 [1] mentions Executive 1 being upset about an Apr 10th article
[2] on their compensation.

[1] [https://www.scribd.com/document/465728291/FBI-Affidavit-
agai...](https://www.scribd.com/document/465728291/FBI-Affidavit-against-eBay-
employees-for-harassment)

[2]
[https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2019/4/155...](https://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blog/blog.pl?/pl/2019/4/1554870735.html)

~~~
refurb
Good catch! Now it makes sense why the CEO and CTO were involved.

------
nknealk
There are several SEC filings around the departure of the CEO in Sept
2019[1][2] that line up with with the timeline mentioned in this article.
Here's the relevant snippet from the 8-K:

"On September 24, 2019, the Company and Mr. Wenig entered into a letter
agreement regarding his departure (the “Wenig Letter”). Pursuant to the terms
of the Wenig Letter, in exchange for his execution and non-revocation of a
release of claims against the Company, the Company agreed to provide Mr. Wenig
with (1) the payments required to be made to him under his letter agreement
with the Company dated September 29, 2014 upon a termination without cause,
which letter agreement was originally filed with..."

The key bit is that the CEO stepping down triggered a severance agreement for
termination without cause. This lines up with the reporting that he engaged in
unethical behavior and had to be forced out.

[1]
[https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1065088/0001...](https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1065088/000119312519254832/d806459d8k.htm)

[2]
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065088/000119312519...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065088/000119312519254832/d806459dex101.htm)

~~~
mulmen
I’m confused. How is unethical behavior not cause for termination?

This reads like doublespeak.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Most likely one of two ways:

1\. His employment contract specifies what reasons may justify a "termination
for cause", and this wasn't listed.

(1a. eBay didn't want to have to prove that the conduct here met the
definition of a specified "for cause" cause.)

2\. eBay could have terminated him for cause, but intentionally terminated him
for no cause instead in hopes of avoiding negative publicity.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
I bet it's number 2. Companies always try to hide this shit. Often the next
one up as ceo is as ruthless as the last one.

------
ghaff
It's hard to know where to even begin with this story.

Yes, it's utterly horrible and scummy behavior. Let's just get that out of the
way.

But who on earth could have thought that morals notwithstanding it was even a
vaguely sensible thing to do from a personal perspective to undertake a
campaign of harassment that you'd think they _must_ have known if it got out
would result (in a minimum) at them being run out the company and likely
blackballed from the industry.

The article does suggest this may have gone pretty far up which, I suppose,
says something about the entire leadership team if true.

~~~
sct202
It's like insane that this is a giant company full of people who should know
better. Like how do you even talk to a single other person and have them not
say something about how this seems like a bad idea.

~~~
ghaff
>have them not say something about how this seems like a bad idea.

I like to think I'd use other language and immediately report them--if _only_
for my own protection.

~~~
pjc50
Reporting them is the opposite of "for your own protection": they'll turn
their harassment on you!

~~~
ghaff
As soon as they've told you what they're going to do, you're probably an
accomplice if you keep it to yourself. Your career at the company is probably
toast at that point anyway. At least a paper trail helps to protect you from
criminal complaints.

~~~
nullc
It doesn't sound like any of the people here were charged because they knew
about it and said nothing, -- they were active participants.

Your calculus will hold the day we start charging people that walk past
conduct like this but, seemingly, today is not that day.

~~~
ghaff
IANAL, but I imagine it's generally hard to charge someone for simply turning
a blind eye to illegal behavior. But if you come to me and say: "Hey, I've
figured out a way to embezzle $100K from the company and I'll give you a cut
if you help me," if all the facts come out at some point, you can be sure I'll
be fired at a minimum whether or not there are any criminal charges.

------
wgerard
Wild. I'm like 99% positive I know the couple and the newsletter they
targeted, because I used to work for an ecommerce company that also came under
fire from said couple semi-frequently.

Of course, like adults, we just rolled our eyes a little bit when it was
particularly over-the-top and tried to use our rational heads to determine
whether the criticism was warranted or not. Truthfully, I think they kept us
in check and I'm glad they exist.

If we had done anything even close to this, we would've been fired
immediately. To be even more blunt, I think I would've been fired for
interacting with them AT ALL, even just a strongly-worded email.

Just a little wild to see how differently people react to the same exact
situation.

------
crazygringo
Not even mentioning that one of those charged used to be a _police captain_...

...but what the hell is wrong with people that they take their job so
seriously that they'd _personally_ harass the people who run a newsletter
that's critical of the company they work for?

And that _six_ of them would do it _together_?

There are no lives at stake here. Nobody's curing cancer or saving democracy
here, where maybe I could at least _understand_ how somebody might take
criticism as something immoral that needed to be fought against, even if I
deeply disagreed with the method.

But I just can't even fathom why these six people even cared enough in the
first place about some newsletter criticizing them. Where are their
psychological work-life boundaries? Why would they even care?

This is just so beyond bizarre. It's like some kind of pathological level of
psychological identification with your company. Your job is _just a job_ ,
folks.

~~~
analyst74
Isn't this like high school bullying, just with more resources at their
disposal?

~~~
rodw
You should listen to the allegations listed in the press conference. This goes
well beyond "bullying" in both scope and severity. They travelled cross-
country to try to plant a GPS tracker on the couple's car for example, and
that's honestly among the _least_ egregious and extreme actions they took.

------
cycomanic
Maybe I'm misunderstanding job-titles, but how does a 32 y.o. become the
senior manager of global intelligence and moreover a 26 y.o. the company’s
manager of global intelligence center. I mean the job descriptions sound like
their are one level below the directors (also considering the two directors
involved). Considering that the 26 y.o. was 25 last year, she would have been
out of uni maybe 2 years ago? Is that normal?

~~~
ponker
A lot of times if you are willing and able to do things that other people
can't, you can get quickly promoted. If you are seen as the kind of person who
could wage an effective terrorism campaign against a random couple in
Massachusetts because they wrote mean things about your Fortune 500 employer,
you are in a very small club and you will be sought out when you are needed.

~~~
perl4ever
"things that other people can't"

I would phrase it as "things other people can't _or won 't_".

Jim Cramer wrote a book in which he described how someone told him he could
have a job if he would just "go in that office over there and fire that guy".
He did.

------
cardfret
I used to work at ebay (not in the US). The company has quite tolerant culture
in terms of several things which any respectable public should never
tolerate[sexual harassment, use of racial slurs, etc...] There were also
anonymous complaints which essentially turned into a witch hunt led by the
team leads to figure out who complained. Most of my colleagues were super nice
and excellent professionally but those 1-2 despicable human beings and the
tolerant behaviour made the environment toxic as hell.

------
TwoNineFive
Holy shit this is nuclear. I shy away from hyperbolic statements, but this is
front-page news and there will/should be longer-term fallout. This is an
example of high-tech corporations using their corporate might to terrorize not
just private individuals, but individuals engaged in journalism. The plausible
deniability is gone; these were C-suite people and entire departments were
involved. NEWS people are going to be all over this at multiple angles: Big-
tech uses private data to terrorize, intimidate, and control. When big-tech
goes after small-time journalists. Profiles of executives and the fallout for
their careers. You can bet there will be a multi-million dollar settlement
from eBay. This story has legs.

------
glitcher
Sounds like the content the couple published about eBay really struck a nerve.
I would like to see that content gain more widespread attention as a result,
since it may be something worth looking into more closely.

Does anyone have original sources of the content? If it was linked in the
article I missed it.

EDIT: another commentor posted a link to their website, but there are many
articles involving eBay. Makes me wonder which ones specifically caused the
most friction?

[https://www.ecommercebytes.com/](https://www.ecommercebytes.com/)

~~~
mundo
I read through a few recent posts (trying to understand how this absolutely
bizarre story could've come about) and it seems like the current point of
contention is "Managed Payments", which appears to be a euphemism for ebay
raising fees later this year. However, the longevity of the newsletter and the
viciousness of the harassment make me assume this must be a personal issue.

------
calibas
There's a whole subculture of the internet obsessed with "gang stalking" and
they're usually dismissed as just being paranoid. I wonder if at least a small
number of cases are actually occurring, and we should be taking the whole
thing more seriously...

I mean, the facts in this case are more or less the same as what people
describe as "gang stalking".

~~~
elliekelly
Honestly, if I knew this couple and they tried to tell me even half of what
had happened I would have thought they were absolutely bonkers. How do you
even make that phone call to police? Knowing you’re going to sound like a
crazy person. I can’t even imagine the stress they must have felt because
there is no chance detectives believed their story right out of the gate.

~~~
alasdair_
> How do you even make that phone call to police?

One of the incidents was when they caught people breaking into their garage to
plant a GPS tracker on their car. This seems like a good inroads to the other
charges.

------
throwawayLcdQ
created this throwaway to say: I worked for a month at eBay and it was an
utter shitshow. I came in to replace a guy who built a prototype app without
version control, which wrote uploaded files onto the same hard drive that the
app ran on. first thing I did is I put the code into git on my local machine.
a few days after that, the hard drive had too many files uploaded, and it
overwrote the code base.

the guy who left set the project up to fail, not realizing he had done so.
total unprofessional BS. the only reason the app could be restored at all is
because I noticed this rookie mistake and put everything under version control
immediately, on my first day. (the guy who left had turned in his work machine
and it was probably already wiped.) did they thank me? no. did they at least
speak to me in a professional manner? also no.

just one data point, of course, but my impression of eBay was that it was
totally toxic and not a place where managers needed to know anything at all
about what they were doing in order to get ahead.

~~~
NullPrefix
Were you at least given a stern talk about the wasteful nature of version
control software?

------
julianeon
Two of the people charged were the former director of safety and security and
the former eBay director of global resiliency. This is one of those cases
where having a ham sandwich in the position would've been better.

But seriously, those officials were supposed to save the company from this:
literally their job. They should have been bringing down the banhammer on
anyone even considering this destructive crime - not perpetrating it.

~~~
perl4ever
"literally their job"

The first thing I thought of was the recent case where Apple's executive in
charge of insider trading rule compliance was indicted for insider trading.

------
sizzle
Someone please help me understand how a small 2 person newsletter run out of a
home in the suburbs was able to provoke high ranking and educated (one is a
Columbia Law School JD) tech executives into seeing absolute red to the point
of commiting brazen and shockingly criminal black-ops style missions that seem
more reasonably explained by having psychosis or mental illness than taking
your job too seriously.

Did they simply think they wouldn't get caught, blinded by their privilege and
ability to get basically anything they want in life with little consequence
given their wealth and status/power ?

Strong God complex vibes from the executives and Stockholm Syndrome behaviors
from their subordinates. (Read the actual court filing, the WhatsApp convos
between the individual are wild...)

------
DonHopkins
>Popp was eBay’s senior manager of global intelligence, Stockwell was the
company’s manager of global intelligence center (GIC), Zea was a contractor
who worked as an intelligence analyst within the GIC, and Gilbert was a senior
manager of special operations for eBay’s global security team.

Maybe hiring dirty psycho ex-cops and giving them carte blanch authority is
just eBay's approach to "Artificial Intelligence"?

------
catalogia
> _“I don’t think I would characterize the conduct as rogue, because as seen
> in the complaint, the directive to do something about this goes pretty high
> up the chain within eBay,” said Lelling. The couple then received a host of
> deliveries aimed at intimidating them. “These deliveries included fly larvae
> and live spiders, a box of live cockroaches, a sympathy wreath on the
> occasion of the death of a loved one, a book of advice on how to survive the
> death of a spouse, pornography mailed to their next door neighbors but in
> the couple’s names, Halloween masks featuring the face of the bloody pig,
> and the pig fetus which was ordered, but after an inquiry by the supplier,
> thankfully, wasn’t ever sent,” Lelling said._

Some of these things basically constitute death threats, and the orders to do
it came from up top. What is the meaningful difference between eBay and a
mafia? That eBay doesn't make good on their threats (as far as we know)? The
whole organization should be dismantled for this.

~~~
smt88
I have long thought there should be a "death penalty" for corporations.

The "execution" would be forced replacement of the entire C-suite.
Additionally, the CEO would be barred from the C-suite or Board positions
forever.

This punishment would be reserved for corporations that knowingly kill people,
such as pharma pushing opioids or Boeing hiding flaws in their planes.

~~~
CyberDildonics
"Corporations are people" comes up quit a bit, but corporations don't have
three strikes laws that sequester their life for multiple decades.

That being said this sounds like something the people involved should be held
accountable for.

~~~
Nasrudith
That cliche complaint about corporations are people forgets that it is better
thought of as "people via transitive property".

And this sort of misconduct is more a personal conspiracy than company
malfeasance. The shareholders would be well within their rights to sue all of
the executives involved.

------
simplicio
In the movies, when a multi-billion dollar company seeks to destroy a rival,
they hire some sort of intimidating "fixer" played by Liam Nielson who hacks
their bank accounts to destroy their finacnes, frames them for crimes they
didn't commit and murders their pets.

In real life, apparently, a team of six people basically come up with a bunch
of ideas that wouldn't be out of place in a prank war between rival college
fraternities that's gone a little too far.

~~~
nogabebop23
sending pornography to thier neighbours with their names on it is one (very
small) step above swatting them, IMO.

If there's any justice (1) people will do time and (2) they will win a huge
civil suit against eBay. At least the latter is likely if not the former...

~~~
bityard
I wouldn't call the difference very small...

Unsolicited porn is mildly embarrassing at best. SWATting almost always
results in _at least_ weeks, months or a lifetime of PTSD thereafter, bodily
injuries from the force of being physically restrained even if not resisting,
and significant property damage running into the thousands of dollars. If you
have any dogs that will try to protect their family, the police do not have
protocols for containing them, they simply shoot them. SWAT missions can also
end in the deaths of suspects due to over-zealous officers or poor
communication in the heat of the moment.

I know which one I would take if given the choice.

~~~
bridanp
I understand what you are both saying. Think it kinda depends on your part of
the world too. My home couldn't be deeper into the US Bible Belt. If my family
were harassed by a company like this, we would become outcasts very very
quickly. Yeah, I'd rather take this over an actual SWAT, but both would have
severe and long term consequences.

------
DonHopkins
For what it's worth, at least they gave the eBay vendor who mailed the bloody
pig head mask to the victim a great review: "A++++ Great seller and fast
shipping! I hope to do business with you again."

------
TheOtherHobbes
A reminder:

[https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
principle-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-
the-office-according-to-the-office/)

------
rdtwo
Anyone know the blog/newsletter that was victim to this? I want to go read
their stuff. Clearly it’s good stuff if the company was this threatened

~~~
waterfowl
I looked on reddit -- seems like it is
[https://www.ecommercebytes.com/](https://www.ecommercebytes.com/) and maybe a
sub-thing "auctionbytes"

------
rkagerer
My experience as a buyer and seller on eBay has been going downhill the last
few years. Reading this story sickens me, and makes me not want to do business
on their platform anymore.

I hope they nail the top execs who encouraged the behavior. Even in the
unlikely-looking scenario they weren't complicit, they ought to be fired for
allowing such an unprofessional culture to fester under their watch.

~~~
bdcravens
My wife and I have a fledgling reselling business on the side, and Mercari is
a far superior experience in every way. It's not as full featured as eBay, but
it doesn't necessarily have to be.

~~~
chipperyman573
How is your experience with buyer disputes? That's the biggest issue I hear
about on ebay

~~~
bdcravens
Haven't had many, because they have a stronger policy. The item is tracked,
and if it's delivered to the proper address, the only way they can get a
refund is either for damage or for not as described. Buyer submits proof to
Mercari, and they make the decision.

------
cycomanic
In some weird way the whole story is a pretty big acclamation for the
newsletter though. I mean if you get directors of a multi-billion dollar
company going after you personally for what you write.

------
dmix
Companies building 'intelligence' and external-facing security wings have
large potential for abuse and need to be very careful.

Just like big private tech companies wading into censorship and politics, you
have to have strong values from leadership and a strong internal cultural to
prevent any sort of abuse of power. These sorts of things are minefields.

One of the most common forms of abuse is when it's used like some personal
weapon against pet enemies - merely because executives or employees don't like
certain groups or want to silence them. Which seems to be the case here.

It's a difficult balance, so if it's going to exist at all they need to invest
heavily in making sure they are acting ethically at all times. Either bring
the clamps down or get rid of it entirely.

------
jb775
Pornography mailed to neighbors...bloody pig mask...box delivered w/ live
cockroaches....This story is clickbait GOLD

------
throwawebaydev
Ebay third party developer here. The couple in question are the Steiner’s who
run the ecommercebytes and auctionbytes blogs.

I don’t advocate, at all, what the ebay execs did, but I will say that the
steiners are completely vindictive people who use their platform to hurt
people they don’t agree with. They are not innocent, and their so called
journalism isn’t anything more than hate mongering.

Again, I don’t think they should be harassed, but in essence, they get away
with harassment everyday. Their blog is full of negativity and people
constantly berating ebay employees.

~~~
stolen_biscuit
Can you link to some of these extremely negative articles on their blogs
please?

------
ycombonator
> “The internal investigation found that, while Mr. Wenig’s communications
> were inappropriate, there was no evidence that he knew in advance about or
> authorized the actions that were later directed toward the blogger and her
> husband. However, as the company previously announced, there were a number
> of considerations leading to his departure from the company,” eBay said.

That’s all I had to read. It had to come from the top to be this organized.

------
dgellow
How much has to go wrong in a company to arrive at a situation like this.
That's the craziest company story I ever read.

From The Verge: [https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/15/21291666/ebay-
employees-a...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/15/21291666/ebay-employees-
arrested-journalist-harassment)

------
nullc
The strategy by ebay here was less dumb than the article makes it sound.

They were harassing the victims while pretending to be disgruntled ebay
sellers. Their plan was to step in, as ebay, and help track down and stop the
harassment, thereby earning the victims trust and goodwill.

They hoped that the goodwill would get the victims to publish less negative
stuff about ebay _and_ that it would cause the victim to identify the operator
of an anonymous troll account (which they seemed to believe was the victim or
at least someone working closely with the victim). I think their goal in
learning the identity of the anonymous troll account operator was to take
legal action against them.

They might have gotten away with it too except the victims got a photograph
and an accurate license tag for one of the ebay employee's rental cars.

------
yrral
Does anyone know the newsletter/blog posts that caused these employees to
retaliate like this? Obviously no matter what they said this behavior is 100%
not acceptable under any circumstances; these 6 employees are definitely in
psychopath territory. However, I'm curious as to what exactly triggered this
kind of retaliation.

------
shervinafshar
I tried to find an official response from the company to no success through
their CS so I asked the community-driven forums. After receiving some pedantic
let-me-copy-paste-a-sentence-from-article-you-just-posted, I found the closest
thing that I could get to an official response:
[https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/A-message-
from-J...](https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/A-message-from-Jordan-
Jordan-Sweetnam-SVP-GM-North-America/ba-p/31012551)

~~~
notavalleyman
Here is the official comment

[https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-inc-issues-
stateme...](https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-inc-issues-statement-
regarding-indictments-of-previously-terminated-employees/)

------
vondur
This is absolutely insane. How could people that are capable of acting like
this end up as heads of a _huge_ tech company? It's as if they are literally
acting like children.

------
aaron695
I'm impressed there seems to be quite a wide range of bloody pig masks to
chose from.

There are whole other worlds out there.

[https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=bloody+pig+mask](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=bloody+pig+mask)

(Also interesting the police have chosen an angle to take the photo of the
bloody pig mask and the uncanny valley effect (which is photos are scarier
than IRL) to make it look it's worst)

~~~
selimthegrim
Hotline Miami leftovers?

------
downerending
Laws are for other people. It's all the rage these days.

------
ponker
I'd bet a paycheck that the CEO was involved. No other way that a group of
senior execs could all get on board with what was obviously a moronic idea
with a staggeringly bad personal risk/reward ratio. The way this happens is
that people who are used to treating CEOs like religious prophets hear an
offhand comment from the CEO and go way too fucking far with it.

------
neilv
If the allegations are true, what's surprising to me is how comically
incompetent the accused were at being ruthless.

I'm glad the victims weren't targeted by a more competent sociopath, or it
might've been one step to being neutralized via financial ruin, death in the
family, or being framed for some horrible crime.

------
creaghpatr
And here I was thinking Kenton from "Devs" was an unrealistic character.

*Devs ep 1 and 2 spoilers in the article

[https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/devs-kenton-
character-...](https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/devs-kenton-character-
episode-2-explained-spoilers-recap)

------
jdright
eBay is such a terrible company (in part inherited from PayPal). There is no
instance of dealing with then were I had plenty of headaches. I just hate the
thinking to have to do anything with these companies again and any service
that requires PayPal just lose me as a client on the sight of PayPal logo.

------
seemslegit
How is this not front-page national news ?

~~~
rchaud
The story was posted less than 2 hours ago. Local news breaks much earlier
than national. National news will eventually pick this up; even in the
currently congested news cycle, this story is too bizarre for it not to.

~~~
seemslegit
> Local news breaks much earlier than national.

On federal cases involving a multi-billion household name company ? Not to my
experience but perhaps.

~~~
anigbrowl
Give it 24 hours. There's a lot of competition.

~~~
rchaud
Here's the NYT article: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/technology/ebay-
cyberstal...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/technology/ebay-
cyberstalking-with-cockroaches-and-bloody-pig-face.html)

------
jxramos
Other than speaking poorly about ebay what specifically did the so called
Natick couple present as a threat to ebay or to these criminals individually?

Anyone have a link to the newsletter that was being published? Should be
useful to browse a little of it to see what the threat to ebay was exactly.

------
luord
Why? Why would anyone do this? What needs to happen for people to harass
someone over some words on the internet that didn't harm anyone? Letting
people have opinions seems like it would be easy.

------
lvs
This is some HBO Silicon Valley level insanity. What the ...

~~~
jetrink
It reminded me more of Tiger King: a group of people driven by a petty feud to
commit increasingly spiteful and illegal actions against a couple who make
their lives at work difficult.

------
mariuolo
If these actions were sanctioned from high enough figures in the hierarchy,
doesn't it mean they make the company as highly liable?

That couple is going to get a fat payout.

------
darth_avocado
It is ironic they did all that because people talked bad about the company and
here we are a couple of years later and people only talk bad about the
company.

------
ponker
As always, the CEO managed to keep himself at arms length and isn’t going to
jail even though these suckers might.

~~~
greenyoda
The CEO could very well be the ultimate target of this investigation, and
could end up in prison.

In cases like this, the prosecutors frequently offer the lower-level suspects
leniency if they cooperate with the prosecution of the high-level suspect.
What we're seeing here could just be the beginning of a case that could last
for a long time, with evidence against the CEO accumulating at each step.

The CEO is probably getting very nervous right now. Maybe his nervousness will
make him commit some more crimes, like lying to the FBI or trying to destroy
evidence.

~~~
ponker
True, but usually the smart CEOs bosses etc. give instructions coded in a way
that can seem vague in a court of law (“We need to do something about Tony”)
but are not at all vague to their subordinates. This is why you see Mob bosses
frequently get 20 year sentences while their henchmen get life without parole
because they can’t be conclusively tied to the murder.

------
ww520
The plot is movie material. I bet there's a book deal(s) coming up somewhere.

~~~
TrinaryWorksToo
There's gonna be a horror movie remake 4 years. Probably.

------
seemslegit
That's not cyberstalking - that's actual, physical, real-life stalking.

------
hashmal
He was responsible for way too many bugs I guess.

------
beepboopbeep
What the hell?

------
wyck
And yet ebay stock is at a near all time high, with this kind of corporate
culture in place? We really live in bizarre times.

