'Crush this lady': how eBay harassment campaign led to $56M payout

No consequences for executives, and yet their ostensibly enormous responsibility is how their salaries and benefits are always justified.

When will the executives face criminal trial too?

“ The seven members of eBay’s security team were all criminally charged and sentenced to prison, home confinement or time served.

Other executives went on to other corporate jobs. Wymer and Wenig left eBay in September 2019, before the charges were filed. The following year, Wymer was appointed chief of the non-profit Boys and Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley. Wenig has been on General Motors’ board since 2018 and now runs an AI start-up. Jones remained at eBay until 2020 and now sits on Prudential Financial’s board.

The Steiners sued the trio and other former executives along with the company in the case that led to the $56mn payout. Under the terms of the settlement, Wenig agreed to pay $2mn, Jones must contribute $500,000 and Wymer $50,000, according to the pair’s lawyers.”

And on the other hand, let's see how the C-suite made out:

  Wymer was appointed chief of the non-profit Boys and Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley. Wenig has been on General Motors’ board since 2018 and now runs an AI start-up. Jones remained at eBay until 2020 and now sits on Prudential Financial’s board.

(These were the Chief Communication Officer, CEO, and SVP for Global Operations, respectively)

From the facts that came out at his trial [1], it seems like Baugh, the guy who ran the operation, was basically feral. At one point during his cross-country trip to harass these people, he was also trying to organize a blackmail campaign (with eBay personnel and resources) against a prosecutor in Arkansas who was charging his father with something? [2]

[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18602070/united-states-...

[2] Page 19, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.227...

> It looks absolutely insane to me, but some people seem to defend it.

Before that policy, you had a bunch of items listed for $1 + $60 "shipping" to dodge fees. I'll take the current structure over that.

Too expensive for things you can sell for cash on one of the dumb local marketplaces or on Craigslist.

Super niche stuff you need to be able to advertise to Timbuktu & Japan & LA & NY in hopes of finding a single buyer… fine take your 15%.

Great place to buy new stuff w/o enriching Bezos. Filter Buy It Now + Lowest Price First & hope they’ve fixed the “list a 99 cent cable alongside the $15 widgets you actually want, or price cap + use Best Match.

eBay has always nickle and dimed you. I remember a friend saying that in the early 2000s when he ran a big eBay store. He always tried to avoid eBay but you made money easier online than at a flea market or Craigslist which come with their own headaches.

He's much happier doing live auctions on WhatNot these days, which seems to be eating into eBay's business

> Whenever people are unsupervised and there is a chance for fraud or bad behavior and, due to the lack of supervision, they believe they won't be caught, you should ALWAYS assume that people will behave badly.

Do you have any evidence to support your claim?

On the contrary, a 2019 analysis [1] combined 400+ experimental treatments, 44,000+ participants, and 47 countries. Participants surrendered roughly three-quarters of the money they could have obtained through maximal lying. In repeated experiments, fewer than one participant in twenty consistently claimed the payoff-maximizing outcome. Increasing the potential reward from a few cents to approximately $50 did not cause people to approach maximal dishonesty.

In a field experiment [2] with 17,000+ apparently lost wallets in 355 cities across 40 countries, people were generally more likely to report wallets containing money than wallets containing no money. The effect appeared in 38 of the 40 countries. The researchers’ follow-up evidence pointed to concern for the owner and an increased aversion to thinking of oneself as a thief when more money was involved.

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.3982/ECTA14673

[2] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax5034

In one of my college courses, 100% of my fellow students cheated, including me. This is when I learned that virtually every person is deep down a liar and a cheat if they think they won't face consequences and it's in their benefit, and any public facade of virtue that people put up, common in this industry, is a manipulation strategy that is just more cheating, although of a different kind.

"Trust but verify" and "Locks keep honest people honest"

Some people might be absolutely moral, but most just don't want to experience consequences

$<surveillance price pending>