Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - They Got DESTROYED // The eBay Stalking Scandal

Episode Date: May 9, 2026

The eBay stalking scandal was a bizarre and criminal harassment campaign orchestrated in 2019 by company employees against Ina and David Steiner, authors of the newsletter EcommerceBytes, in retaliation for their critical reporting. Led by eBay’s security team, the harassment included sending terrifying packages—such as a bloody pig mask, live insects, and a funeral wreath—to the couple’s home, alongside physical surveillance and public Craigslist posts inviting strangers to their property.

Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor,

free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Imagine you criticize a billion dollar company online, and then they retaliate by stalking you. Now, this all starts with this woman, Ina. And Ina's around 60 years old, living in Massachusetts with her husband, this guy, David. And Ina and David, they run a website out of their home, where Enah basically blogs about online shopping platforms, like eBay and Etsy and Amazon, platforms like that. And one day in 2019, Ina writes a blog post that changes their lives forever.

She writes about the CEO of eBay. And she says that this guy gets paid like $18 million a year, which is 152 times what regular employees at eBay make. And so thousands of people regularly read her blog. And they leave comments like, That guy makes way too much. And what an overpaid empty suit. And first.

But here's the thing. The comms director of eBay, he happens to see this article, and he shares it around the company. And that is when the CEO of eBay himself sees it. And he gets super pissed, because, you know, they're talking about him. And he decides he's going to retaliate. And so he texts the comms director, take her down. And the comms director texts back, we're going to crush this lady. I want to see ashes, as long as it takes, whatever it takes.

And so a revenge plot begins against an elderly couple who have no idea what's about to hit them. And so soon after that, Ina starts noticing some rather intimidating posts about her on Twitter, like that her website is hurting eBay users and she sees posts from people threatening to visit her home address. Then she starts getting threatening DMs like, shut up, bitch, or watch what happens. One day she receives a strange package. in the mail from an anonymous sender, and when she opens it up, it's full of live cockroaches. Then another anonymous delivery comes, and it's a box full of live fly larvae and spiders. Oh, and it doesn't stop there.

Strangers start showing up at Ina and David's house at all hours of the night, and they don't knock on the front door or anything. They just try opening it up and walking in. And poor Ina and David, they can't figure out why this is happening. So they go online and they find out that their home address has been posted on Craigslist in multiple ads for sex parties, specifically inviting anyone and everyone to come right in, no need to knock. So these random people were just showing up to smash.

Now at this point, Ina and David, they know something is very wrong. So they call the police. And later, a police officer shows up to file a report. And as he's leaving their house, he sees a package on the front porch. And when Ena opens it up, she screams, because she sees what looks like blood and hair and flesh. Someone had apparently sent her a pig mask, like the one worn by the killer in the Saw movie. And the police officer is there to witness this whole thing. Then, Ena gets a DM from an anonymous Twitter account.

Says, did you get my gifts? Do I have your attention now? then the user posts her home address publicly. And so this online harassment, it keeps going on and on. And Ina and David still have no idea who's behind all this. Regardless, Enna doesn't shut down her website or anything like that. She refuses to be silenced. She keeps posting.

And in one post, she criticizes the CEO of eBay for building a very large, expensive, lounge bar on eBay's campus. And she notes his wasteful spending while eBay sellers are being charged more and more fees. And the eBay comms director sees this post and then he gets all mad and he texts his employees, I want her done. She is a biased troll that needs to get burned down. So then more of eBay's security team are directed to harass Ena and David. So things just keep getting worse. At one point, David gets a package in the mail, and when he opens it, it's a book about how to survive the loss of a spouse. Then shortly after, he receives a funeral wreath, suggesting that they're threatening to kill his wife. Around the same time, four employees from eBay fly from California to Massachusetts,

and they rent cars, and they drive past Ena and David's house repeatedly at all hours. of the day and night. In fact, every time David leaves the house, he's followed. Then, eBay employees make a plan to break into David and Enah's garage and install a GPS tracker on their car. But apparently, this plan ends up failing, luckily for David and Ena. So now, David and Ena, they know they're being watched. And so, Ena suggests that they start sleeping in separate rooms.

That way, if someone breaks in, at least one of them can escape. while David, he installs cameras all around the house, and he stops sleeping through the night so that he can check the cameras every two hours. Sometimes he'll see people outside their house dropping off more anonymous deliveries at like 4 a.m. So over time, these two become too scared to even leave their house. And to make it worse, they no longer trust delivery services. So eventually, they start running out of food. And so one day David decides that he's got to leave to go get groceries. And as he's driving to the grocery store, he sees a silver SUV in his rear view.

So he gasses it to speed away. And he takes a sudden turn, but the SUV is still on him. So he takes another sudden turn, but the SUV is still on him. And so David starts to panic, and he calls the police, and he tells them, I'm being followed. And from there, he drives direct. directly to the police station and he pulls up right out front. And that is when the SUV sees that they're now at the police station and it speeds away. But then poor David, he gets out to walk to the station and his heart is all racing and like he can't breathe.

And suddenly, boom, he collapses from all the panic. Now, luckily, David was able to get a picture of the SUV and its license plate. And so later, police figure out that the silver SUV was a rental. and that it was rented to a woman who works at eBay. And so suddenly, kaboom, it finally all makes sense. And that is when Ina and David finally realized that this was a coordinated harassment campaign run by the top execs at eBay, a billion dollar corporation, and it's meant to torture them into silence.

And like, this is a huge story. So police contact the FBI and they get the FBI involved in the FBI. FBI starts investigating and they look into everything, the Twitter accounts, the deliveries, the Craigslist ads, and they trace all of it back to seven different employees of eBay's security team. And so, bam, all seven of them are arrested. Now, of course, news of this gets out and it blows the fuck up. And all seven of the security employees plead guilty with several of them getting years in prison. However, the same can't be said for the execs at eBay who these employees took orders from. Because, as you would expect, eBay conducted an internal investigation

of themselves, and guess what? They determined that they did no wrongdoing. And the comms director who wrote, I want to see ashes. He faced no criminal charges, and he's now currently a very well-paid CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley. While the CEO of eBay, who said, take her down, that guy? After the stalking scandal broke, this CEO, he acknowledged no wrongdoing, and he resigned, but he left the company and he walked away with a $57 million severance package. And of course, he faced no criminal charges, and now he's on the board of directors of General Motors. While eBay itself, the company, is criminally charged, and they pay a $3 million fine, which is like nothing to them. But all that money goes to the government, not to Ena and David.

Now, eventually, Ena and David do sue eBay in civil court, and eBay settles with them out of court for an undisclosed amount. Hopefully, it was millions.