eBay has agreed to pay $3 million to settle charges related to its former employees’ actions. These employees sent live spiders, cockroaches, and a fetal pig to a couple in Massachusetts who had criticized the company in a newsletter back in 2019.
The charges against eBay include stalking, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. As part of an agreement to defer prosecution, eBay will pay the maximum fine allowed by law for these offenses.
Additionally, the company will have to have an independent monitor oversee its compliance for three years and make necessary changes to its compliance program, as mandated by federal authorities.
Jodi Cohen, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division stated that,” Today’s settlement holds e-Bay criminally and financially responsible for emotionally, psychologically, and physically terrorizing the publishers of an online newsletter out of fear that bad publicity would adversely impact their Fortune 500 company.”
eBay caused a lot of suffering for the victims, according to Joshua S. Levy, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts.
The company “engaged in absolutely horrific, criminal conduct. The company’s employees and contractors involved in this campaign put the victims through pure hell, in a petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the eBay brand,” Levy stated.
eBay stated that it is accepting “responsibility for the misconduct of its former employees” in a statement that was published on its website on Thursday.
Executive Chairman Jamie Iannone stated, “The company’s conduct in 2019 was wrong and reprehensible. From the moment eBay first learned of the 2019 events, eBay cooperated fully and extensively with law enforcement authorities.”
Iannone further added that, “Since these events occurred, new leaders have joined the company and eBay has strengthened its policies, procedures, controls and training. eBay remains committed to upholding high standards of conduct and ethics.”
The company promised to fix things with the affected couple, according to the statement.
As per the deal with the government, eBay acknowledged that between August 5 and August 23, 2019, seven people, including eBay’s former senior director of safety and security, targeted the victims who lived in Natick.
The prosecutors mentioned that the campaign of intimidation was aimed at altering the content of the newsletter’s reports.
“The campaign included sending anonymous and disturbing deliveries to the victims’ home, including a book on surviving the death of a spouse, a bloody pig mask, a fetal pig and a funeral wreath and live insects,” prosecutors said.
