The 2019 eBay Stalking Scandal: When Tech Giants Become Stalkers

[00:01:24] Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium and Assembly of Fascinating Things,

[00:01:27] Adam Cox: a weekly variety podcast that gives you just [00:01:30] enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:33] Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Reese, your ringmaster for this week's episode.

[00:01:35] Adam Cox: And I am Adam Cox, the chief hand warmer for the winter circus this week.

[00:01:40] Kyle Risi: Okay. How are we warming these hands?

[00:01:43] Adam Cox: Well, for all the acts that are about to go on stage. Yeah. I'm there.

[00:01:46] Kyle Risi: Oh, no. Before they go

[00:01:47] Adam Cox: on warming up their hands in any way I can.

[00:01:50] Kyle Risi: I know a really warm place. Could you put them down my pants?

[00:01:52] Adam Cox: No, Like under my armpits. Um, think touch my bum. That's pretty warm.

[00:01:56] Kyle Risi: Like What if there's a roue of, acrobats that are all waiting to go on [00:02:00] in that moment and they all need their hands warmed up at the same time.

[00:02:02] Everyone's just grabbing anything that they can. That's right. One down the pants, one in the bum, one under the armpits.

[00:02:08] Adam Cox: It's an HR disaster waiting to

[00:02:10] Kyle Risi: happen. Yeah. Hr Ah,

[00:02:12] Adam, for our new listeners. Do you wanna tell them what the show's all about?

[00:02:15] Adam Cox: Basically, each week we explore a story from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, or the jaw dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

[00:02:24] Kyle Risi: Ooh.

[00:02:24] Adam Cox: And this week Kyle is doing the dive into an interesting topic that he thinks you'll find fascinating.

[00:02:29] [00:02:30] And by the end, the aim is that you'll have everything you need to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:02:35] Kyle Risi: Do you think we deliver on that promise, Adam?

[00:02:36] Adam Cox: Eh,

[00:02:37] Kyle Risi: I mean, each week when after we finish the episode, you're like, what was the episode about?

[00:02:40] Adam Cox: I have no idea what we've done before.

[00:02:42] Kyle Risi: If you are new to the show and you wanna support us, then clicking that follow button wherever you listen to podcasts is how you can do that. Also, please leave us a rating or a review because genuinely this really helps other people find the show.

[00:02:56] Adam Cox: And if you want to support the show with actual money, then join our [00:03:00] Patreon. The link is in the show notes.

[00:03:02] Kyle Risi: As a Patreon member, you'll be employed as a certified freak, which is a little bit backwards since you are paying us, it makes us, a multi-level marketing company.

[00:03:11] Wow. That's, uh, how high

[00:03:12] Adam Cox: up the pyramid can you climb? I've never thought of it like that,

[00:03:16] Kyle Risi: but it does mean that you get access to all of our unreleased episodes up to six weeks before anyone else,

[00:03:22] Adam Cox: plus our certified freak and big top members get our exclusive compendium key chain it's very large, so it's more of a body [00:03:30] emblem. Perfect. As a gang charm around your neck. But it probably is better as a belt buckle.

[00:03:35] Kyle Risi: It is the certified way to ensure not only you are recognizable as a certified freak, but also that we can always be there dangling

[00:03:43] Adam Cox: near

[00:03:43] Kyle Risi: your crotch.

[00:03:44] That's, that's so dirty. That never gets old for me. Right. Adam, that's enough for the housekeeping. Are you ready to kick off today's show?

[00:03:52] Adam Cox: I am ready. What are you serving us today,

[00:03:54] Kyle Risi: Adam? Today on the compendium, we are diving into an assembly of power without perspective [00:04:00] paperwork, without conscious and consequences arriving in the post.

[00:04:05] Adam Cox: Are we doing the post office scandal

[00:04:09] Kyle Risi: no, we're not doing that story today,

[00:04:10] Adam. We have both had firsthand experience with negative comments on this podcast. It is so difficult for us to not take them to heart.

[00:04:19] Adam Cox: Yeah. Although I, I dunno if I've received any negative such a, a lie,

[00:04:24] Kyle Risi: but I think after three years we have dealt with them, in a very mature, rational way most of the [00:04:30] time,

[00:04:30] It's just part and parcel of what we do. Right. We remind ourselves basically that sticks and stones can break our bones, but words will never harm us.

[00:04:37] Sure. This is the exact approach that you would expect a multi-billion dollar company to have mastered by the time they take their company public.

[00:04:45] And so Adam, when they don't, it's really noticeable. This is exactly what happened in 2019 when eBay started receiving what most people would argue pretty reasonable, seller focused criticism from a little [00:05:00] blog run by just an ordinary couple just out of Boston, Massachusetts.

[00:05:05] What the couple didn't bank on though, was that their seemingly innocuous comments would end up living rent free in the brain of Devon Wang, the CEO of eBay.

[00:05:16] Adam Cox: So what were they saying? What?

[00:05:18] Kyle Risi: Basically

[00:05:19] Just really regular stuff. They were massive advocates of eBay and they want the best for eBay, right? So they were like, we're really excited that the CEO is committed to really improving the [00:05:30] seller experience. Either way, whatever their comments were was hitting kind of a nerve underneath it between the lines. He was kind of, he lost his perspective on being able to look at these comments rationally. Mm-hmm. And he just drove him wild.

[00:05:42] And so instead of ignoring the comments, decided to launch a zero expense spared full on retaliation operation against this very couple.

[00:05:52] Okay.

[00:05:53] One Adam, that would end up spiraling into one of the most embarrassing, wildly disproportionate [00:06:00] cyber stalking scandals of the e-commerce age.

[00:06:03] Have you heard of the story before?

[00:06:04] Adam Cox: I have not. No. And it sounds quite recent actually. So you think this would've been all over the social media? How did it get to this then, if all they've done is just, made a few complaints,

[00:06:14] Kyle Risi: well, it gets pretty dark, Adam, because it's a real example of how people in power can really end up warping their own perspectives on things like they get so insulated in kind of the positional power that they kind of exist in, that they don't really see the wood for the trees. if you will.

[00:06:28] It's a story that really [00:06:30] highlights the thin line between professionalism and absolute madness and how easy it is to just fall over that line. Mm-hmm. It's that gap where ego and unchecked authority completely collide. And how sometimes, maybe one of the most dangerous things that an ordinary person can do online is actually just write something shockingly reasonable, which is what this couple did.

[00:06:52] So, Adam, today I'm gonna tell you about the 2019 eBay stalking scandal. Where one of the biggest companies on the planet run by a CEO with a thin [00:07:00] skin just could not handle what other people were saying about him online, we will explore how he ended up setting in motion a black ops initiative to take down these naysayers and how this couple's resilience reinstated the status quo in the end.

[00:07:17] Or, we hope it will do because the story is still unfolding and the trial is due to start in just a couple days.

[00:07:22] Adam Cox: a black ops initiative as in that makes me think of snipers on a roof.

[00:07:27] Kyle Risi: Yes. Secret mission stuff.

[00:07:28] Adam Cox: Oh, okay. But with [00:07:30] snipers,

[00:07:30] Kyle Risi: Do you know what? If it had been allowed to go on long enough, I wouldn't be surprised. Wow.

[00:07:35] It's wild.

[00:07:36] What did they do to piss him off? So should we drive into it then? Sure.

[00:07:40] So Adam, I guess my first question is, what do you know of eBay? Have you used the eBay before to buy or sell anything? Basically used the eBay.

[00:07:47] The eBay, you know, the eBay, it's like when people go, oh, just post that on the Facebook.

[00:07:52] Adam Cox: I, well, I know that eBay kicked off around the time of the Beanie Babies.

[00:07:57] Kyle Risi: Don't spoil it.

[00:07:58] Adam Cox: No, I thought you wanted me [00:08:00] to tell you what I know. It's the biggest e-commerce or one of the biggest e-commerce bidding auction. Sites out there?

[00:08:06] Kyle Risi: Yes it is and probably one of the most successful, but also it's the Shining Star because it was one of the major survivors from the.com bust, So Adam eBay, was founded in 1995 by a French Iranian American programmer called Pierre Omi Jar. And basically it started out as a way for him to make just a little bit of extra money on the side.

[00:08:26] Do you know what eBay was initially called?

[00:08:28] No

[00:08:29] Adam Cox: auction [00:08:30] web. Auction web, which

[00:08:31] Kyle Risi: it's kind of a bit myth, right?

[00:08:33] Adam Cox: That's what it is on the tin.

[00:08:34] Kyle Risi: Yeah, but it doesn't really fill me with excitement.

[00:08:36] Adam Cox: Well, no, but then does eBay,

[00:08:38] Kyle Risi: not really, no.

[00:08:40] But as a concept, Pierre, he does really land on something really unique because auction web is one of the first companies to offer a consumer marketplace directly on the internet, basically matching buyers to sellers. When the site first launched, the first item ever sold was actually a broken laser pointer that Pierre listed himself.

[00:08:59] It [00:09:00] ended up being bought by a Canadian guy called Mark Fisher for $14 and 83 cents, which is quite a lot of money.

[00:09:06] Adam Cox: A broken one though.

[00:09:07] Kyle Risi: Yeah, well, the thing is though, at the time, like a new laser pointer was like a hundred dollars. So he figured that if he bought a broken one, he could try to repair it, and then once he repaired it, then he would have a cheap laser pointer, essentially.

[00:09:19] Adam Cox: True. But then even as Pierre, like he obviously wants this to be a success. So the first thing he lists is a broken item.

[00:09:25] Kyle Risi: I honestly do not think it had anything to do with trying to turn a profit. It was probably testing the [00:09:30] process. Okay.

[00:09:31] But the thing is though, it's been 30 years since he bought this laser pointer, and he still has it, but he's not gone around to fixing it.

[00:09:37] Oh, so he's just sitting in a box somewhere. But he's really proud of the fact that he's bought the first item ever sold on eBay.

[00:09:43] Adam Cox: His customer, ID must be like 0, 0, 0, 0 2

[00:09:46] Kyle Risi: possibly. But also he's really proud of the fact that he has like a hundred percent accelerating as well. Oh, it's the most important thing to him. 30 years later.

[00:09:53] In auction web's first year, they end up facilitating $7.2 million worth of sales between [00:10:00] buyers and sellers, which is astonishing so realizing that Pierre has landed on something special, he decides that he's gonna quit his job to focus on the marketplace full time.

[00:10:09] It's in the site second year that they process their 1000000th sale. And at this point, it's when Pierre decides that he's gonna change the name from Auction Web, to eBay. And so eBay was finally born.

[00:10:22] Adam Cox: And how did he land on the name like eBay? Is it E four E-commerce?

[00:10:26] Kyle Risi: Actually, the E stands for. Echo Bay, Echo Bay. [00:10:30] Yeah. which was the name of the consulting company that he owned at the time.

[00:10:33] But when he went to go register the domain, the name had already been taken by I think a gold mining company somewhere. So he ended up settling on ebay.com.

[00:10:41] Adam Cox: So actually there is nothing to do with auctions or any kind of hidden meaning?

[00:10:45] Kyle Risi: No, it's Echo Bay. But I think a lot of people just assume that the E stands for electronics. Yeah. Or e-commerce. But no, that's bloody echo. So the success, of eBay is largely put down to one thing, which you already alluded to earlier on Beanie Babies. The Beanie Baby bubble of the [00:11:00] 1990s.

[00:11:00] Adam Cox: That's how it took off really, wasn't it? In terms of like pretty much, yeah. Internationally in America. Was it international at this point?

[00:11:06] Kyle Risi: I mean it was operating in Canada.

[00:11:08] Mm-hmm. And actually the Beanie Baby bubble was the very first episode we ever did on this podcast. And it was largely down to basically a bunch of soccer moms out of Illinois who realized that there was a secondary sales demand for Beanie Babies at the time. And eBay as a platform offered them an opportunity to capitalize on that.

[00:11:25] Sales of secondhand Beanie Babies on eBay ended up accounting for more than half a billion [00:11:30] dollars alone, which at the time is 6% of Taiwan is entire company valuation, which is massive.

[00:11:35] But another reason for eBay success was that it was one of the rare actual utilities that came out of the.com bubble at the time, most of them were gimmicky sites. They didn't really have any practical purpose, but that didn't matter because it was new and it was initiative.

[00:11:50] But the vast majority websites, like I said, they were just really gimmicky. They didn't really have any major practical kind of purpose. If they did, their business operations were [00:12:00] extremely vulnerable behind the scenes and disguised behind the novelty factor of it just being on the internet.

[00:12:05] And so there was, a stark reality that once this novelty factor wore off, it likely meant bad news for a lot of these businesses that were online. Right.

[00:12:13] EBay. However, they had managed to tap into a niche that connected millions of people around the world to a single global marketplace. prior to eBay selling anything at a meaningful scale required a physical bricks and mortar store.

[00:12:27] Adam Cox: I'm guessing Amazon wasn't around at this [00:12:30] point.

[00:12:30] Kyle Risi: Amazon was.

[00:12:30] Adam Cox: Oh, was it?

[00:12:31] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Yeah. They were focusing primarily on books at that time.

[00:12:33] Adam Cox: Yeah, that's right.

[00:12:34] By 1998, eBay started offering its own IPO, and on the first day of Trading Shares opened at $18, and by the end of their first day, the IPO closed at $53 a share, essentially making Pierre a billionaire overnight.

[00:12:51] Wow. That's almost triple in a day.

[00:12:53] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and so it really is an incredible achievement for a company that just started out as a hobby three [00:13:00] years previously. Mm-hmm.

[00:13:00] But even while the internet was exploding into everyday life, doubts were starting to creep in because, companies were purposefully running their businesses and lost, they were chasing market share with a whole get big, fast kind of mindset, which works fine when money is easy and investors are still writing new checks.

[00:13:18] Many were being propped up by this idea that a business model, relying on transaction fees and subscriptions was only a problem if the economy was in danger. And at that moment in time, the economy was great as far as they could [00:13:30] see, customers weren't going anywhere.

[00:13:31] That wasn't until March, 2000 when Japan is hit by a massive recession and it ends up cascading globally. Banks start hiking up their interest rates. Consumers, they of course stop spending. And investors as a result, start shifting away from these speculative assets, which included many of the online websites with these shaky kind of business models that hadn't been really thought out properly.

[00:13:53] Like I said, their mindset was grow fast, grow quickly. trillions of dollars ended up dissolving almost overnight.

[00:13:59] [00:14:00] However, the recession. Made eBay's value proposition even sharper than it'd ever been because when people were tightening their belts or desperate to make some extra cash on the site to support themselves, they go bargain hunting, right? Mm-hmm. And so, of course, where are you gonna go when you wanna do that?

[00:14:16] You're gonna go to eBay, which was the perfect place. And so it was recession proof. And so When the bubble smoke cleared, eBay was one of the few shining diamonds that was still left standing. They had proved essentially their [00:14:30] utility.

[00:14:30] Adam Cox: Is it a bit like, with lockdown, how, all these Shopify stores kicked off essentially because people found an opportunity, either they wanted to start a side hustle or they wanted to make some extra money.

[00:14:41] Mm-hmm. I imagine eBay probably was huge back then 'cause people had no, nothing else to do. So it's one of those It's convenience isn't it? A little bit,

[00:14:48] Kyle Risi: yeah. And I guess the test is like when you're going through that hard period of time, like lockdown was who was left standing at the end. Mm-hmm.

[00:14:54] And essentially that is what the.com bubble boom was, Who is standing once [00:15:00] earthquake is shook?

[00:15:00] Adam Cox: Yeah. Like what? how many sites that were around then are still as big as they are now?

[00:15:06] Well, I mean, you've got Google, you've got eBay, eBay, Amazon, you've

[00:15:09] Kyle Risi: got Amazon.

[00:15:10] Adam Cox: But things like Ask Js a OL or Yahoo, all these things, or at least that were big elsewhere in the world. They're just tiny now in comparison. Yeah.

[00:15:18] Kyle Risi: But this is the thing that I found really interesting about the whole.com boom, is that, a lot of the founders of these companies, they were just regular Joes that were working like a nine to five grinding away against the corporate machine that was [00:15:30] for years, sucking them dry.

[00:15:31] And so you see this trend where you've got the likes of eBay, Amazon, Google, who all commit to doing business differently to the massive conglomerates that came before them. And you can absolutely hear this commitment in the mottos that they adopted very early on.

[00:15:44] Google's of course was famously, don't be evil.

[00:15:48] Adam Cox: Weird tagline.

[00:15:49] Kyle Risi: Yeah. But again, it reflected that commitment to not following the same footsteps as the big evil corporations that came before them, essentially. Yeah.

[00:15:56] Amazon's reflected a promise to put the customer [00:16:00] first, and theirs was customer obsessed.

[00:16:02] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:16:03] Kyle Risi: And in a similar fashion, eBay's early motto was, get this, " people are basically good."

[00:16:10] Adam Cox: These are all very odd mottos. When I think of the businesses now, I'm like, that just does not fit.

[00:16:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And the thing is that they come with this kind of, consumer contract. Mm-hmm. Right? It's like a promise. You do business with us, this is what we promise to do.

[00:16:23] Adam Cox: Sure.

[00:16:23] Kyle Risi: It's a bit like John Lewis where they had never knowingly undersold.

[00:16:27] Mm-hmm. Um, we also had one with [00:16:30] Gucci, which was, I can't remember, it was something about value and commitment to quality, but as a logo, I think it says a lot because it puts it almost like a contract above their name.

[00:16:40] Sure.

[00:16:41] And eBay's was born out. This belief that ordinary individuals when empowered by technology would trade honestly without kind of any heavy corporate kind of oversight.

[00:16:50] And of course I mentioned this now because it's a foreshadowing of how quickly, especially eBay will abandon this motto.

[00:16:58] Adam Cox: Oh, okay. Oh yeah. 'cause of the [00:17:00] couple that complained about them Exactly.

[00:17:02] Kyle Risi: But also don't be evil is no longer Google's motto. They got rid of that years ago.

[00:17:06] Adam Cox: Yeah. I mean, ' 'Cause they couldn't commit to not being evil.

[00:17:09] It kind of feels like you should just do that anyway. That doesn't need to be a motto.

[00:17:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah. For sure, for sure.

[00:17:15] So eBay, they made it through the bus. They were even stronger than ever. Their valuation continues to soar throughout the two thousands, and by 2002, they have acquired PayPal for $1.4 billion as well as a bunch of other [00:17:30] companies, including like Skype before it was eventually sold to Microsoft. They also own like big chunks of Craigslist, which is Gumtree here in the uk.

[00:17:38] Adam Cox: Oh yeah. Is Gumtree even still going?

[00:17:40] Kyle Risi: It is, and I think it has is actually owned by eBay as well.

[00:17:43] Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

[00:17:43] Kyle Risi: They're basically going about buying up a bunch of different companies at a discount rate following like bust, if you will.

[00:17:51] And at its peak, eBay employ more than 34,000 people across all the companies that they own across the world.

[00:17:58] Wow. It's [00:18:00] wild.

[00:18:00] But even in spite of their success, eBay, Adam, they do face a lot of criticism. One of the biggest was in a complete contradiction to their motto at the time, and that is when the site basically becomes overrun with counterfeit products.

[00:18:14] Brands like Louis Vuitton, they start losing millions of dollars in sales, which is all facilitated through eBay and for ages. EBay refused to do anything about it, which leads to these massive brands across the world, just suing them for damages.

[00:18:25] But buyers and sellers were also very direct with their own criticism towards eBay as [00:18:30] well. Because for a long time, a huge bone of contention was eBay's reluctance to do anything about shield bidding.

[00:18:35] Do you know what that is? SHIELD bidding? No, sh shield bidding. S-H-I-L-L.

[00:18:40] Adam Cox: I definitely dunno what that is.

[00:18:42] Kyle Risi: Basically, it's when people bid on their own items to raise your auction price. Oh, of course. Yeah. You know? Exactly. And it's so frustrating when people do that, right?

[00:18:49] Adam Cox: Yeah. Is that why, like typically is just when you like put a bid in and then automatically it gets bid by someone else?

[00:18:55] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it, I mean there is a like a threshold that you can set. So you can say I'm gonna [00:19:00] start my bid at $1. Mm-hmm. But I'm gonna go as high as $5. Mm-hmm. So if someone comes in and bids at $2, you are instantly outbid because you can set a higher threshold. It's like automating the process.

[00:19:10] Adam Cox: Yeah. Which I think is good as a buyer. But yeah that was the always the worry with eBay is buying something that's counterfeit, but it doesn't seem like it. Whereas with Amazon, you always felt like trusted going, yeah, this is the product from the manufacturer back then.

[00:19:23] But I don't feel like that now.

[00:19:24] Now because of their marketplace, it just feels like eBay.

[00:19:28] Kyle Risi: EBay have actually now put in [00:19:30] various services where they will qualify whether or not something is genuine. When you wanna sell some trainers, Jordans or whatever, you can actually send them to eBay. They will check them out and they will verify that they are genuine. Same with watches and things like that. That's part of their, one of their more recent commitments possibly implemented like in 2020. Mm-hmm. I think.

[00:19:47] The point is, time and time again, throughout eBay's rise up to the point of 2019, their motto's constantly being stress tested from every single angle.

[00:19:56] And it starts to feel like many people. Are not [00:20:00] basically good.

[00:20:01] Which brings us Adam to our stalking scandal. One that seems to prove that even eBay itself was unable to live up to that very same premise

[00:20:11] Adam Cox: that people are basically good.

[00:20:13] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:20:14] Adam Cox: Basically good. Mostly good. Sort of good.

[00:20:18] Kyle Risi: Yeah. That's it. And so this is when they get embroiled in one of the biggest cyberstalking scandals of the digital age, which is just so wild for me to even say those words. That a company as big as eBay has [00:20:30] gotten themselves involved in something like this.

[00:20:31] Adam Cox: And so Pierre, he created eBay and he's still there at this point? No,

[00:20:35] Kyle Risi: I don't think so. I think he's long gone. He did not feature in the story at all. I think he's like a, a founder from the days of pure

[00:20:42] Adam Cox: days of your made some money, sold it, moved on.

[00:20:45] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly.

[00:20:46] And so our story actually starts. Even though we're at 2019, we're gonna go back a bit to the origins of eBay, back to the late 1990s when eBay was proven to be a massive hit with millions of monthly visitors.

[00:20:58] Two of those were husband and [00:21:00] wife, ina and David Steiner from Natick, Massachusetts.

[00:21:04] And they were avid, online buyers and sellers on eBay.

[00:21:07] and at the time, Eno was working at a publishing company and David was like a video producer.

[00:21:11] They both shared this huge love for garage sales. And so together they would go off hunting for collectibles and different antiques so they could sell those on eBay and other marketplaces that were around at the time.

[00:21:21] Adam Cox: So this is like their side hustle?

[00:21:23] Kyle Risi: Exactly, yes.

[00:21:24] However, they find themselves continuously frustrated by eBay and other marketplaces, like Amazon's [00:21:30] continuous tweaking of their sites and adjusting their policies, which made the sites really difficult to use.

[00:21:35] And so they decided that they were gonna set up a website called eCommerce bytes.com with the sole purpose of guiding early internet auction buyers and sellers on how to navigate these online e-commerce sites. Basically,

[00:21:48] Adam Cox: uh, it's a bit like an FAQ information guide.

[00:21:51] Kyle Risi: It's a trade publication and a newsletter. Exactly. Exactly what you've just pretty much said, but over time, it expands to include a blog. It includes service [00:22:00] ratings and tools for online trading. As a platform.

[00:22:02] It grows really quickly and it actually becomes an industry go-to resource. Credible enough that companies like eBay and Amazon go to them directly whenever they wanna share an update that subscribers might be interested to know more about.

[00:22:15] By 2020, the site was receiving 600,000 monthly visitors, which is huge. The vast majority of these people are people who are making a living, selling on eBay.

[00:22:27] Adam Cox: Yeah. So this is a bit like a how to, you start a business, you [00:22:30] go on there, they give you all the information of how you're gonna set your account up.

[00:22:33] Kyle Risi: Yeah. How do you use these sites, especially when they're always shifting kind of their prices and their salary fees, et cetera. It's just Sure. If you have a question, we can help answer it. We will also give you some industry news on like, Hey, there's a new CEO of Amazon and here's everything you need to know about him.

[00:22:49] Basically, ina and David are just an ordinary couple doing ordinary things. They met in college, they get married, they build this little site that they have been running for 20 years, just helping people [00:23:00] navigate the pains of using these online auction sites.

[00:23:02] Sure.

[00:23:03] By 2019 though, on the other side of the USA, eBay has been operating out of their corporate headquarters in San Jose, California since 2003.

[00:23:14] This is like Prime Silicon Valley territory, Adam, and over the years their headquarters has expanded into this massive, massive campus.

[00:23:22] They employ like in excess of like 12,000 people across different divisions and subdivisions just at this one site.

[00:23:28] One of those [00:23:30] divisions was the global security and resilience team, and a key part of what they did was keeping track of any persons of interest, which eBay defined as anyone who would pose a potential danger to the company.

[00:23:44] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:23:45] So it feels like part of their role should be like looking out for competitors, people that might be breaching like copyright or trademarks. Mm-hmm. That kind of thing.

[00:23:53] Kyle Risi: Basically anyone considered a threat was systematically logged in what eBay called the threat [00:24:00] matrix, which contained obviously the entity's personal information, like their home address, their photos, there'd be dossier files on them. Wow. Basically everything that they had.

[00:24:09] Adam Cox: Imagine it's like those, spy movies where they have those files and you open it up. Mm-hmm. You see the picture location. Yep. What they had for breakfast,

[00:24:16] Kyle Risi: where they they do right now.

[00:24:17] Adam Cox: Where they go to yoga. Yeah. Wow. And I would've loved to be in those meetings for that team, like on a Monday. So can we have updates of key personal interests? Mm-hmm. And then they'll be like, oh, this is Sarah, who is startup? She [00:24:30] be, and yeah, she went out for breakfast with a new man that's not her husband.

[00:24:34] Kyle Risi: If we feel like we need to take her down. She always orders the eggs so we could always poison the eggs. Uhhuh. Yeah. Guarantee a sting.

[00:24:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. Or take some photos, send it to her husband and then be like, that will tip off. New boyfriend.

[00:24:45] Yeah.

[00:24:46] Kyle Risi: What they would then do is they would then rank each one of these based on several factors like the power and influence that they had.

[00:24:52] The matrix was largely made up of journalists and bloggers, anyone who had previously published any negative stories or amplified any [00:25:00] anti eBay sentiments online or in print, they were on this list

[00:25:03] Adam Cox: and that's how Ena and David get on this list.

[00:25:06] Kyle Risi: But they are the very bottom of this list. They get like 600,000 subscribers to their website, but in comparison to stuff, they're a small fry. Mm-hmm. They're tiny and they're so innocuous, like they're not a threat,

[00:25:17] Adam Cox: it's just a how to site

[00:25:19] Kyle Risi: exactly.

[00:25:20] Here's the thing. The policies that eBay kept on how they were supposed to, I can't believe I'm saying this, neutralize these threats. They're never really defined, it was [00:25:30] mostly just about maintaining visibility of what they were up to.

[00:25:34] That is it.

[00:25:34] Adam Cox: I reckon they're like planting salmonella, poisonings, all sorts.

[00:25:40] Kyle Risi: No, they're not doing that.

[00:25:41] Adam Cox: How do we know that for sure?

[00:25:42] Kyle Risi: Well, I mean, we know that they devolve down to that, but at this moment in time, it's just like what's on the threat matrix.

[00:25:48] So rather than enacting any systematic processes of dealing with them, it's just visibility. Mm-hmm.

[00:25:53] Now, the global security and resilience team is tiny in comparison to other divisions. They employ like 20 people [00:26:00] usually from security backgrounds, which meant that the team was made up of retired police officers and security consultants.

[00:26:06] Basically people with egos

[00:26:08] and private investigators. Pretty much. I wouldn't be surprised. The team was also headed up by a guy called James Barr, and under him was the department supervisor, a woman called Stephanie Pop.

[00:26:19] Basically the management style was that cliche, early 2000 startup culture it is so cringe, because the overarching philosophy is Adam, we're [00:26:30] family.

[00:26:30] Adam Cox: We're family until we're not.

[00:26:33] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And James and Stephanie, literally, they tell people to call them mom and dad.

[00:26:37] Adam Cox: That's weird.

[00:26:37] Kyle Risi: Which makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Yeah, don't do that.

[00:26:40] They also adopt all these like move fast and break things or we work hard and we play hard.

[00:26:46] They also try to create this culture of camaraderie. So there's snooker tables and tiki bars all over the place. They even offer like a lunch service, which sounds like they're really putting people first, but honestly, as we know now, it's purely a [00:27:00] tactic to just keep people at work longer.

[00:27:02] Adam Cox: Yes. Yeah.

[00:27:03] Kyle Risi: Ultimately, it's propaganda basically of the early two thousands.

[00:27:07] And James as a manager, he is middle aged. He's very authoritative as a guy. He's actually an ex CIA operative which means that he has a militant streak, especially when it comes to his management style and security threats in general.

[00:27:21] Adam Cox: Does he get them all to like line up in the morning whilst they're giving their briefing?

[00:27:24] Kyle Risi: I wouldn't be surprised. Basically, There's this incident where he finds a knife left on a barbecue grill [00:27:30] after like a team hootenanny

[00:27:32] Adam Cox: A knife? Yeah. On a grill. On a grill. What did he do? I hope that the person was fired.

[00:27:38] Kyle Risi: He's furious. Basically, he gathers everyone around and he just goes on this massive rant about how this could have hurt someone, or someone could have used it as a lethal weapon. And then to drill the message home, you start stabbing the chair repeatedly.

[00:27:52] And then after that, he tells everyone not to remove the knife because they should stay there as a warning to not do it again.

[00:27:58] Adam Cox: So they're just gonna leave the knife on the [00:28:00] barbecue?

[00:28:00] Kyle Risi: No, in a chair.

[00:28:02] Adam Cox: I in a chair. He stabbed the chair. So you're having a meeting, you've got like a knife just like bing out.

[00:28:08] Kyle Risi: People are like, that's potentially dangerous. Someone could sit on that.

[00:28:12] So he doesn't live by what he breaches basically.

[00:28:14] Adam Cox: He sounds like he got a bit of an ego. He wants to roll the roost. Mm-hmm.

[00:28:17] Kyle Risi: He's also really cheesy and his favorite thing to do is repeat film quotes, which he constantly uses to inspire and motivate his team.

[00:28:25] He'll write play clips from like Wolf of Wall Street to illustrate the sense of camaraderie that he [00:28:30] expects within the team.

[00:28:31] He also loves to play EC clips from Meet the Fs, you know, with Robert De Niro, Uhhuh, the whole circle of trust kind of spiel that he gives Ben Stiller.

[00:28:39] he'll like go up to someone and he'll be like, I'm telling you this now because we are in a circle of trust together. It's just so cringe.

[00:28:46] Adam Cox: I feel like if you ever come across these people, you just need to get out.

[00:28:50] Kyle Risi: I know. Like, yes, exactly. It is such a toxic environment to work in. Like it looks really cool. Yeah, they've got a tiki bar, But I think if you have a tiki bar, you're making up for something that you're [00:29:00] fundamentally lacking.

[00:29:00] Adam Cox: And that is a life outside of work.

[00:29:02] Kyle Risi: Exactly.

[00:29:03] But the thing is though, the way he runs his division, he does so with a full expectation of complete and utter dout loyalty. Like, I mean in every sense of the word, but their loyalty, as it is with these types of startups is a one way street because he will routinely fire people for almost no reason.

[00:29:20] There's an instance where one woman gets sacked because she didn't smile enough in front of a senior executive.

[00:29:26] Adam Cox: What?

[00:29:26] Kyle Risi: Yep. Someone else gets sacked because he hated [00:29:30] how they chewed on their pen.

[00:29:31] Adam Cox: Is this in the contract that's a sackable offense

[00:29:33] what do you mean? Well, that's unfair dismissal, right? Or do they not have rights?

[00:29:37] Kyle Risi: Oh, a lot of these people are contractors as well, so they pretty much don't get any severance pay anyway. And in America it's different kettle the fish. You can just sack people without any kind of reason really.

[00:29:46] Cheering on a pen.

[00:29:47] Yeah, like one of their mantras was we fail forwards, but God help you if you actually do fuck up because you're gonna guess act.

[00:29:53] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:29:54] Kyle Risi: By 2018 the department is mysteriously made up of just women, which is when James starts [00:30:00] referring to his team as Jim's angels.

[00:30:02] Oh no. Yeah, so a play on Charlie's Angels, which is just so embarrassing.

[00:30:07] Adam Cox: I hope they're listening.

[00:30:09] Kyle Risi: They might be,

[00:30:09] So Adam, by 2019, eBay has started to feel a little bit stagnant. And one of the reasons was that eBay was spread really thin. They had all these different side businesses that they had acquired over the years, which came often at the expense of eBay's core marketplace.

[00:30:25] That is when an activist hedge fund called Elliot Management decided that they [00:30:30] would like to invest in eBay. But they quickly realized that all these other businesses that eBay had were seriously distracting eBay from what they did best.

[00:30:38] Their thinking was that if eBay could shed some of these side businesses, like I'm talking like Skype and Craigslist and Gumtree, just get rid of them, right? Mm-hmm. So you can focus on eBay itself.

[00:30:49] Their thinking was that they would then be able to refocus on the marketplace and tap into significant opportunities to increase the share price.

[00:30:57] But in order for Elliot management to do [00:31:00] this as an investor, they were going to need a considerable stake and so in 2019, Elliot buys roughly 4% of eBay.

[00:31:07] By activist investor terms, that is literally enough for them to win the right to issue various recommendations on how they should be running the organization.

[00:31:16] Adam Cox: I guess it's gonna cost them a lot of money to have 5% of shares though.

[00:31:19] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it is a lot of money, but it gives them voting power essentially.

[00:31:22] Sure.

[00:31:23] And once they're in and it decides to publicly make their intentions clear for their vision for eBay, they publish an [00:31:30] open letter which criticizes eBay's current performance and they basically call for sweeping changes across the country, which includes potentially replacing the current CEO Devon. We

[00:31:43] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:31:43] Kyle Risi: Their argument basically is that eBay stock had underperformed both its peers and the wider market for years. And so suddenly David Wing's future at eBay is potentially up for discussion because they can bring that to the board's table if they wanted to.

[00:31:56] And he's scared that's gonna happen

[00:31:57] and so to make sure this doesn't [00:32:00] happen, david Wang commits to all the rapid restructuring, to show Elliot management that he was on board with whatever they wanted to kind of enact. And please don't sack me. Basically.

[00:32:09] Adam Cox: That's crazy how much sway 5% will have.

[00:32:12] Kyle Risi: So around this time, back in Natick, Boston, Massachusetts, Ina Steiner learns about El Management's open letter to the eBay's board.

[00:32:22] So in January, 2019, in a post an article titled Activist Investor Eviscerates eBay Management. She basically [00:32:30] summarizes the existing open letter which accuses eBay of Miss execution. She isn't saying anything outrageous at this point, right? She's basically just echoing what Elliot Management has already publicly said,

[00:32:41] Adam Cox: okay, fine. So it's not, yeah, it sounds pretty standard then for her to report on that.

[00:32:46] Sure.

[00:32:46] Kyle Risi: But what is very clear is that between the lines of what she writes, there is very much a tone of enthusiasm about what Elliot Management wanna do because she wants them to focus on the eBay selling platform because it benefits her and [00:33:00] benefits her subscribers.

[00:33:01] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:33:01] Kyle Risi: Devin Wang, however, does not like this at all because Elliot's open letter is a direct reflection of how he has been running eBay for the last four years, Ina has now amplified that

[00:33:11] So Devon instructs the global security and resilience team to keep an eye on the Steiner's activity.

[00:33:16] Around the same time. In February of 2019, Devon hires Steve Wyer as his new chief communications officer. His role is basically to oversee eBay's reputation management, which at the time [00:33:30] the buzz was all around Hey, like what's our story?

[00:33:32] Adam Cox: Oh yeah. What's the story? What's the narrative? Yeah, it's so cringe. Sounds like they made a role for this guy.

[00:33:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah, so Devon is basically so concerned about his public image that he's brought in a new person at this level.

[00:33:45] And again, for the Steiners, they think the news of this new hire is something that their subscribers will be interested in, hearing about.

[00:33:50] So in April of 2019, Ina writes an article about Steve Weiner joining the company. In it though she notes that Devon's salary of [00:34:00] $18 million was actually 152 times the average annual salary of a regular eBay employee.

[00:34:07] Adam Cox: Wow.

[00:34:08] Kyle Risi: It's crazy, isn't it? And she suggests that kind of pay might also be coming at the expense of eBay sellers. And it's also a very fair opinion, right? Mm-hmm. And so if Elliot Management were interested in reducing costs and improving kind of the operations of the business, then maybe that might be something that they might consider looking at

[00:34:26] Adam Cox: I mean, it's a lot of money. Does Devon feel like it's a [00:34:30] personal attack,

[00:34:30] Kyle Risi: yes, exactly. He feels it's a personal attack. It's the kind of public jab that makes someone already anxious feel even more anxious. Sure. Because he knows that if anyone sees that, it's just bringing attention to the fact that he's earning $18 million a year.

[00:34:44] If Elliot management see it, they could easily go, but you know what? This woman is Right. Let's bring this to the board table. But the point is, she only has 600,000 subscribers. They're probably not looking at her site.

[00:34:55] Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. Because her site is pretty much for like startups, it feels, or kind of [00:35:00] small to medium businesses. Mm-hmm. It's not for big corporates by the sounds of things. Absolutely. Um, but then for Devon, I guess he's underperforming. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, that's one way to turn around the company.

[00:35:10] Kyle Risi: So when this post goes live, Steve Wyer, he's the new communications officer, he sends a link to Devon. Devin is furious and he replies to Steve, we are gonna crush this lady.

[00:35:22] Adam Cox: Wow. Why don't you focus on your actual job, Devin?

[00:35:25] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So I don't think it's just the Steiners hitting this nerve, he's clearly been [00:35:30] just doom scrolling through the threat matrix. he's living in it, which by design is a concentrated slurry of people just taking shots at him. and so I get why he might feel like he's just under attack from everyone.

[00:35:40] Adam Cox: I feel like with the CEO though, you need to have broad shoulders, right? You can't take things to heart. So it doesn't sound like he's perhaps the right CEO for this business.

[00:35:48] Kyle Risi: No. And the fact that he's probably living this list, I think he's just lost all perspective.

[00:35:52] just To show you how severe his losing touch with reality is at the very bottom, and I mean at the very bottom of the threat matrix [00:36:00] list is another name, a Twitter user who goes by the name of Fido Master.

[00:36:04] Now, Fido Master is not even an eBay user at all. However, his wife is, and she's recently gotten more and more frustrated by the unfair treatment towards sellers on the platform.

[00:36:14] Now Fido master, he is just being a supportive husband and he's simply echoing a few of ho grumbles.

[00:36:20] And the thing that shows how much Devon is losing touch with reality is that fighter masters tweets get zero track. Like they get half a dozen likes [00:36:30] at best.

[00:36:30] It is the reason why he's literally at the bottom of this list. He's just a guy with a tiny megaphone, and yet seeing these tweets sends Devin the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company on an $18 million salary into a literal spiral rage. Who gives a shit what fighter master says?

[00:36:47] Do you know what I mean?

[00:36:48] Adam Cox: There has bigger things surely for him to be dealing with right now, but I dunno, his ego is clearly, I dunno, been hit.

[00:36:55] Kyle Risi: again, I think it's because he is living inside this list. Just close the list. [00:37:00] Go touch grass.

[00:37:01] Adam Cox: You know what I mean? Yeah. Step outside.

[00:37:02] Yeah. Breathe.

[00:37:03] Kyle Risi: Anyway, Devon instructs the global security and resilience team to start looking into find a master a bit more. He's like, there's no way this guy deserves to be at the bottom of that list.

[00:37:12] Adam Cox: He, well, he should be higher. That's so stupid.

[00:37:15] Kyle Risi: It is so dumb.

[00:37:17] So a month later in May, 2019, I know writes another article this time saying that Devon Wang has promised to give sellers greater protections from fraudulent buyers

[00:37:27] on, on the platform. And she speculates [00:37:30] excitedly on what that might mean for other sellers. Again, like this isn't a hit job. She is just holding up a mirror to what the CEO of eBay has already pledged to do.

[00:37:39] Mm-hmm.

[00:37:40] When Steve Wyer sees this article, he sends it of course to Devon, and Devon responds sarcastically, may I add Whoa. Shockingly reasonable.

[00:37:49] Which it is, especially if this is what you've promised. But in Devon's mind, he has stopped seeing these articles for what they are to him. It's just one more piece in this public [00:38:00] scrutiny of him at the exact moment where he's already feeling the heat.

[00:38:04] So there's a bit of back and forth between Devon and Steve about Ina, and at the end of it, Devon says, I couldn't care less what she says.

[00:38:12] I want to take her down. That's an oxymoron.

[00:38:16] I think he does care.

[00:38:17] Yeah. Just a tad. Just a little bit.

[00:38:20] So the global security and resilience team managed under James, remember Mr. Chess stepper? Mm-hmm. They're instructed to take action and take Eina down. What's [00:38:30] he gonna

[00:38:30] Adam Cox: do with his angels? Slow cringe. Come on, angels.

[00:38:33] Let's, let's get in the van.

[00:38:34] Kyle Risi: Now this is key, right? While looking through Steiner's Dossier on the threat matrix, James becomes utterly convinced that there is a connection between the Steiners and Fido master.

[00:38:46] Adam Cox: What he either thinks they're one and the same. Yes. Or like they're plotting some kind of word group. He thinks that they're the same entity. Okay.

[00:38:52] Kyle Risi: They are not. May I add?

[00:38:55] So eight days after Devon instructs that the Stein has be taken down, a member of [00:39:00] the Global Security and Resilience Division takes a six hour first class flight from California to Boston.

[00:39:05] They drive all the way to the Steiner's house on the outskirts of Boston and they spray paint the words Fido master on their fence.

[00:39:14] He thinks basically they're saying, nice try. We know you're Fido master. And they probably come out and like, what the hell is this? They, yeah. They come out and they go, some Yob has like to put their name on our fence.

[00:39:24] Adam Cox: Someone has tagged our fence. Yeah. Some youth,

[00:39:27] Kyle Risi: uh, but it's also equally embarrassing because they [00:39:30] think that this is their gotcha moment. That's what's the cringe part of this. But the steiners are like pesky kids.

[00:39:36] Adam Cox: This is a multi-billion dollar business. I know. Who's, who's used their weird resilience team.

[00:39:44] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And bear in mind they're doing this because they feel threatened by an account who gets literally six likes.

[00:39:50] Adam Cox: Well, I bet that'll teach 'em.

[00:39:52] Kyle Risi: So next, the Global Security and Resilience team, they properly set out to prove that Fire Master was actually the Steiners.

[00:39:59] They [00:40:00] set up a fake Twitter account. A woman calling herself Marissa. Her profile picture implies that she's like in her early twenties. Her bio says that she's a former eBay employee.

[00:40:09] She slides into fighter masters dms claiming that she has extremely damaging videos of eBay executives and misbehaving and that she needs his help in getting that footage to the Steiners.

[00:40:19] The idea is simple fighter master will either admit that he knows them or slip up and reveal that he's actually them, basically. Mm-hmm.

[00:40:27] Fighter master's response is basically, [00:40:30] yeah, I dunno who they are. Marissa obviously doesn't bias it 'cause she believes that this is some kind of weird espionage that's gone all the way to like Russia.

[00:40:39] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:40:39] Kyle Risi: Like he's just some guy on the internet. If he says he doesn't know who they are, just believe him. What is he trying to hide?

[00:40:45] Adam Cox: Yeah. And equally, if I was Fido master and I receive that message, I'd be like, why are you telling me if, in knowing that, like what my following is? Why would you just not go to the newspapers or I dunno, the TV with this kind of news story?

[00:40:58] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. Why are you coming [00:41:00] to me? I, my, biggest tweet is a cat photo with 15 likes.

[00:41:02] Do you know what I mean?

[00:41:04] Marissa, she keeps pushing though. Fighter master. He finally loses patience. He does a quick Google search. He finds ina Steiner's publicly available email address, like the kind that you would find, like in literally five seconds.

[00:41:16] He then sends it back to Marissa and he's like, there you go. I found it instantly, by the way, do not work in tech. Was this why you were let go then Marissa, [00:41:30] she kind of ups the weirdness and she suggests that she could actually leave the footage on a thumb drive in a hotel in any city in the world of his choice.

[00:41:38] So that basically he can pick it up and then pass it on to his mates. The Steiners.

[00:41:42] What, and again, fighter master is like, listen, I'm not interested in whatever the fuck this is. I don't know who the Steiners are.

[00:41:49] And also, I don't think what you need is a whistleblower. I think what you need is a lawyer

[00:41:55] Adam Cox: that's, uh, it's so stupid. I just, I can't believe they think that this would [00:42:00] work, to be honest.

[00:42:01] Kyle Risi: Yeah,

[00:42:01] Adam Cox: it is dumb.

[00:42:02] Kyle Risi: And when Fido master doesn't take the bait, when he reacts like an any normal person would do, not someone who's hiding a secret identity, they realize that he isn't actually connected to the Steiners at all. And so this is when they realize that their CEO's paranoia is starting to spiral into somewhere really dark.

[00:42:20] Adam Cox: Yeah. Just a tad.

[00:42:22] I mean, the fact that they are on eBay's payroll mm-hmm. Doing this crazy stupidity essentially. It just doesn't, it [00:42:30] just seems so bizarre to me.

[00:42:31] Kyle Risi: It's wild.

[00:42:32] Adam Cox: Adam and also the head of their team is like ex CIA. Mm-hmm. This is the best that he can come up with. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a fake profile called Bara.

[00:42:39] That old fish 'em out.

[00:42:40] Kyle Risi: Well they do tell James this. They're like, we are convinced that fighter masters is not the Steiners. Mm-hmm. But James is like, they're just playing four D chess babe.

[00:42:48] Adam Cox: He's like, I should know.

[00:42:50] Kyle Risi: Yeah. He says, if they won't bite, we'll just have to ramp things up.

[00:42:53] Of course, ina and David, they have no idea any of this is happening. The most they know is that [00:43:00] they've had a pain trying to get the graffiti off the fence. Other than that, they're going about their day. Normally. They are not even thinking about David Wang in any capacity whatsoever. Yet. David Wang is being consumed by this couple.

[00:43:13] Adam Cox: He's quite like that pitcher on a dartboard and every night he's like throwing darts at them.

[00:43:17] Kyle Risi: So embarrassing.

[00:43:18] So on the 1st of August, it's business as usual for Ina who writes a short post about a lawsuit that eBay is filing against Amazon, accusing them of poaching eBay sellers, [00:43:30] basically Amazon are like creating these fake accounts. Then they're going on to eBay and then they're sending these sellers different, messages to say, oh, we've got better rates over at Amazon. Ah, why you come over to us? It's innocuous at best.

[00:43:42] Adam Cox: Yeah. That's not a lawsuit, is it?

[00:43:43] Kyle Risi: He's gonna try and make it a lawsuit. But the thing is though, she is just reporting the facts, but buried in it is the mild insinuation that she's skeptical of david's tough tactics in this lawsuit. She's really? Just, who cares? Yeah. If eBay was good enough, then Amazon wouldn't be successful at poaching these [00:44:00] sellers away.

[00:44:00] That's true.

[00:44:00] So 30 minutes after the Oscar goes up, Devon messages Steven Wyer saying, if you're ever gonna take her down, now is the time.

[00:44:08] And Steve replies with on it.

[00:44:11] Steve then texts James saying. If hatred is a sin, then I am very sinful.

[00:44:18] And he follows up with, she is a bias troll who needs to get burned down in all capital letters. One exclamation point. And then in all caps, he goes, I want HER [00:44:30] DONE

[00:44:31] Adam Cox: What does that mean

[00:44:32] exactly? Are they actually gonna put a hit on her?

[00:44:35] Kyle Risi: It feels like it could get that way, doesn't it?

[00:44:37] Adam Cox: Well, yeah, actually, good point. This feels like it could get out of hand. It

[00:44:41] Kyle Risi: it, that sounds like an absolute

[00:44:43] Adam Cox: threat. Yes.

[00:44:44] Kyle Risi: So James obviously gets the message loud and clear. He starts planning on how they're gonna take down the Steiners.

[00:44:50] He calls a recon meeting to brainstorm in the conference room. But before they do that, he decides the mission needs a cool name.

[00:44:56] You might think that he might go for something like Operation [00:45:00] Thunderbird or something cool and exactly like that, but the best that he can come up with is.

[00:45:05] The op,

[00:45:08] Adam Cox: well, it doesn't sound like he has a lot of work to do, to be honest, if this is what he's being tasked with.

[00:45:12] Kyle Risi: So to get everyone motivated, he then plays them a clip from a movie.

[00:45:15] So you would think it would be something from like Die Hard or Lethal Weapon. Instead, he plays them a clip from a 1988 teen movie called Johnny B. Good. Which stars Robert Downey Jr. And Umer Thurman.

[00:45:28] And in [00:45:30] it, the football coach has to basically deal with a bunch of pests that are just like showing up at his house at random times.

[00:45:36] Like a delivery guy will show up with like loads of unwanted pizzas. Harry Krishna will turn up on an elephant like a rodent exterminator will turn up and at one point, even a male stripper arrives at the door as well. And the random people basically, showing up on men to symbolize how eBay was under attack by these random people.

[00:45:55] Adam Cox: Right. Okay.

[00:45:57] Kyle Risi: So following this clip, basically after he's got everyone [00:46:00] motivated, they stopped brainstorming on different ways to bring the Steiners down mm-hmm.

[00:46:04] In the end, they plan to launch a series of harassment attacks to shake them up enough to distract them from writing any more negative posts online.

[00:46:13] Then the second part of the plan is that eBay will swoop in, offer to help stop the attacks. This will impress them so much that they'll realize that actually eBay are the good guys in all of this.

[00:46:25] And then they'll start writing favorable articles about them.

[00:46:28] Adam Cox: So eBay saves the day [00:46:30] and all is good in the world. Yeah,

[00:46:31] Kyle Risi: basically eBay can see the headline. Now, blogger admits we were wrong about eBay and

[00:46:39] Adam Cox: what kind of attacks, like for eBay to swoop in. Mm-hmm. What are they doing? What are they saving? Ener and David from?

[00:46:47] Kyle Risi: Well, we'll find out after the break.

[00:46:49] So Adam, the first thing they do is they start sending ina a series of Twitter messages from a fake account, supposedly based in Samoa.

[00:46:57] The handle is two [00:47:00] eco.

[00:47:00] Adam Cox: I'm sorry that that took me a while to get that.

[00:47:04] Kyle Risi: It's difficult to say two eco lie and to make it obviously even more sinister. They use a skull as the profile picture.

[00:47:10] The accounts whole character arc is that it is a eBay user whose sales have been affected by e-commerce bytes websites, which I dunno how that computes. I don't know how they have directly impacted their sales because at the end of the day they're just like an industry publication basically.

[00:47:25] Yeah.

[00:47:26] But the point is they have serious beef with Ina and David initially [00:47:30] ina does a grownup thing and she ignores these messages, but the more she ignores them, the angrier two Eli gets and eventually he sends them a message saying,

[00:47:39] I guess I'm gonna have to get your attention another way bitch.

[00:47:43] Wow.

[00:47:44] So on the 10th of August at 4:00 PM a package arrives at the Steiner's house. They don't know who sense it, but when they open it, it is a pig's fetus. Really?

[00:47:56] Yeah.

[00:47:56] It's the sort a universe would use to dissect and study uhhuh. [00:48:00] So is literally got all of its in trails and organs and stuff inside of it.

[00:48:04] Right

[00:48:04] after the delivery is confirmed, two e Coli sends the message.

[00:48:09] Do I have your attention now? Wow. Five question marks or caps.

[00:48:14] This is, so this is crazy.

[00:48:17] So the same day, the Steiners also noticed that they've been signed up to a bunch of weird online newsletters like irritable Bowel syndrome news.

[00:48:24] They get signed up to the Satanic Temple membership, but also various fetish website, mailing lists and [00:48:30] newsletters.

[00:48:30] Adam Cox: Of course, that's the go to, right?

[00:48:32] Kyle Risi: Yeah. In total, they work out that they've been signed up like 50 different subscriptions.

[00:48:36] Adam Cox: They must report this as a crime though, right?

[00:48:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah, they do. Naturally, they're freaked out, right? So they call the police, but there's not really much that they can do. The best they offer is to send a patrol car to drive past the house a couple times a day. But really, other than the Twitter account from a guy in Samoa, like they have nothing to go on.

[00:48:54] The next day, on the 11th of August, James sends an update to Steve Weiner telling him how the [00:49:00] op is going.

[00:49:01] is not satisfied. He responds with, I want to see ashes as long as it takes, and whatever it takes

[00:49:07] Adam Cox: ashes. What does he mean by that? He's basically saying, killer. Yeah. Come on. What? What else could that mean? That's definitely a threat of violence or death, right? I want to see ashes. He's not saying I wanna go to the ashes, like, I wanna go watch a bit of cricket.

[00:49:22] No, it doesn't sound like that, but I was just trying to double check like that's actually how far he wants to go with this.

[00:49:29] Kyle Risi: Sounds like it. [00:49:30] It sounds like that's what he's willing to do, And I think we need to look at his words very carefully, because again, it's going to outrage you when we get to the very end of this.

[00:49:38] Adam Cox: I am interested to hear his side of the story Yeah. when he defends himself.

[00:49:43] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[00:49:43] So following this, more deliveries arrive because obviously James needs to up the ante right? This time, this package is addressed to David and it is a funeral wreath. Oh

[00:49:55] the next day he receives another package again to David. This time it's a [00:50:00] book titled, grief Diaries, surviving the Loss of a Spouse.

[00:50:05] Adam Cox: Okay. Now it is concerning.

[00:50:08] Kyle Risi: A concerning or thoughtful.

[00:50:10] Like we're sorry. We're gonna have to kill your wife, but we think that this will help you process it all. Yeah. Yes. Please contact us for customer assistance so we can assist you with losing your partner.

[00:50:22] Adam Cox: They've got a reef as well, so they're kind of thoughtful.

[00:50:24] Kyle Risi: It's just wild that all of this was okayed by upper management.

[00:50:28] Mm.

[00:50:28] It's crazy. [00:50:30] next they receive a box of live fly larvae.

[00:50:33] Adam Cox: Okay. So Would you be opening these boxes inside? I don't know. to be fair, if this is day three or four, I'd be like, come on now, please.

[00:50:40] Yeah. Get involved

[00:50:41] Kyle Risi: Following this, they then get another package this time, a box of cockroaches. Okay. After that. Ooh, a box of live spiders. Basically, they're hoping to distract them from publishing blog posts by drowning them in the responsibility of pet care.

[00:50:58] Adam Cox: What are they doing of all these animals? They're keeping [00:51:00] them. No, they're

[00:51:00] Kyle Risi: raising them. No, they must be, in my mind, they're keeping them. They have an entire NRE of animals, including the pig fetus. Yeah, I know it's dead. But they pick it up and they go, come on then. And they like pretend to make it, get all animated.

[00:51:12] That's dark.

[00:51:13] It's really dark.

[00:51:14] So next, this Steiner's neighbors, they get a package as well. It's addressed to David, so it's sent to them directly, but it's got David's name on it. So they know that the package is meant to be for David. It contains basically this month's hus, the magazine, and it's titled Barely Legal [00:51:30] Eye-Popping. 18 Year Olds. No. Which is designed of course to wreck their reputation in standing in their community.

[00:51:35] Of course, humiliate them. Of course, David has to explain that it isn't his. He's like, someone is sending me weird stuff in the post, but they're like, of course you would say that. That's like the perverts motto. You put your one hand down your pants and you say, I know nothing about this. Someone from Samoa is sending them to me.

[00:51:52] Adam Cox: It's textbook. Yeah. Logical explanation.

[00:51:55] Kyle Risi: Then the call started coming in. Turns out that eBay have registered their interest in [00:52:00] starting a franchise for a chain of sex shops. So they're suddenly getting all these earnest calls from people saying, hi, just following up about your inquiry to start up your own branch of knobs and knockers.

[00:52:12] They're like, what the fuck?

[00:52:14] Adam Cox: Is that the actual name?

[00:52:14] Kyle Risi: No, no, it's not. After this, the Steiners receive another message from the Samoan account saying.

[00:52:21] When you hurt our business, you hurt our families. People will do anything to protect their family. Five exclamation [00:52:30] points. Okay, so he means business, right?

[00:52:31] These are threatening things.

[00:52:33] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:33] All of this really starts to erode David and AAR's entire lives. They become more and more anxious about leaving the house. They start sleeping in separate bedrooms so that if an intruder breaks in and gets one of them first, then the other then has a chance to either react or defend the other one.

[00:52:48] Oh, wow.

[00:52:49] AAR's nightly routine is making sure that there is a baseball bat in her bedroom and there's a golf club in the office, and she'll then also roll like a laundry cart stuck with pots and pans [00:53:00] in front of the back door. So If everyone basically breaks in, it'll alert them and give them time to react.

[00:53:06] Adam Cox: It's crazy. This is, yeah. They feel threatened. Yeah. Their life under attack.

[00:53:11] Kyle Risi: So basically if anything did kick off and someone broke in, the plan was to of course call the police, grab the bats or the golf club and then go save the other one. Mm-hmm. Essentially. Which is really scary to have to coach each other through that. This is the plan, this is what you do.

[00:53:24] Obviously David is like, bring the grief book because like, we're supposed to fill this out. [00:53:30] Otherwise it's just a waste.

[00:53:31] But also throughout all of this, with the responsibility of trying to protect Ina, he just cannot function. He can't sleep at night. He wakes up every two hours, like obsessively checking the surveillance cameras that he's got set up around the house. So it's just awful. I would not wanna be in this situation.

[00:53:46] So a week later, around mid-August, James decides that it's gonna ramp up the harassments and he ropes in another contractor in his team called Veronica and David Harwell, who is actually the director of the Global Security and Resilience team. So [00:54:00] he's proof that this went all the way up to the top.

[00:54:02] Veronica, of course, she doesn't want to go, but again, remember she's a low level employee, so she doesn't wanna get fired. But at the same time, she's also one of the very few people who are on the low level who see how crazy all of this is anyway. Mm-hmm. But she has to go,

[00:54:15] they fly first class to Boston, check into the Ritz Carlton. So this is costing ' em thousands of dollars. Each time they make a trip out to Boston. Their plan is to essentially drive to the Steiners and install a GPS tracker on their car. But when they arrive, they [00:54:30] realize that the car is actually kept behind a locked garage.

[00:54:32] But the thing I don't understand that doesn't make real sense to me, is that why do you want to track their movements? The Steiners, they literally live and operate from their home like. It makes me wonder whether or not James has just decided that they're gonna do this because this is what he sees in the movies.

[00:54:48] Adam Cox: Yeah. Is this what he used to do in his old job?

[00:54:51] Kyle Risi: I don't know. I don't

[00:54:53] Adam Cox: think so. What kind of data or intel are they gonna get unless they're gonna use it to blackmail them? Maybe. I don't know.

[00:54:59] Kyle Risi: It's [00:55:00] just like, what's the point? They just run this small little blog, like, where are they gonna go? You're gonna watch 'em go to Tesco? Yeah, that's it.

[00:55:06] James also buys a police radio so he can listen out if the Steiners report as a suspicious car waiting out on the street. That way they can just make a run for it. They also keep, the weird delivery is coming, notably, like pizza deliveries all sorts of times in the middle of the night, like at 4:30 AM

[00:55:21] Adam Cox: I'd appreciate that.

[00:55:22] Kyle Risi: I mean, if you are scared that you are gonna be murdered, would you appreciate that? Oh, I, it could be poisoned. Good point. Initially [00:55:30] they prepay for the pizzas. But of course, remember the signers are not gonna answer that door.

[00:55:33] Mm-hmm.

[00:55:34] They can see it's a delivery person, but at the same time, they don't know if that's someone disguised as an assassin. Yeah. So obviously they're not gonna answer the door.

[00:55:40] But also the pizzas have been prepaid for, so that delivery guy doesn't stick around for more than a couple minutes. Right. Like no one's answered the door.

[00:55:48] They're prepaid. I'm just gonna leave the pieces here in the doorstep and he leaves. Mm-hmm.

[00:55:52] eventually James realizes that if they order pizza requesting cash at the door, then the deliberate guy would just keep banging on the door, which would then make it obviously [00:56:00] feel way more scarier.

[00:56:01] Also, James starts posting ads saying that the Star Steiners were hosting swinger parties and that if anyone's interested, they should come knock on the door anytime day or night.

[00:56:14] Adam Cox: Really?

[00:56:14] Kyle Risi: Wouldn't it be funny if they answered door and they're like, well, you're here now. You might as well just come in. Yeah, I'll put the color off. Take your bra off if you like.

[00:56:24] So this goes on for a few weeks. All the employees of the global security and resilience team have been [00:56:30] roped in on this. They all have families by the way.

[00:56:32] So James sets up a sort of relay where other team members will routinely fly out to take over. from them . Again, they are flying out to Boston first class and staying at the Ritz Carlton. And so all of this is costing eBay tens of thousands of dollars each time that they fly out or fly back.

[00:56:49] The harassment takes a turn when one day David is out running errands when he notices a rental car is following him. David at this point is freaking [00:57:00] out and so he does the only thing he can think to do and that is to drive directly to the police station. He does his best to get a few photos of the rental car like Oh, okay. Through the rear view mirror.

[00:57:11] And when he gets to the station, they end up driving off, so it's massive relief to David. But at this point David is full on having a panic attack and the police basically end up discovering him slumped over a retaining wall really outside of the station.

[00:57:26] Adam Cox: So he didn't even make it in?

[00:57:28] Kyle Risi: No. He just so freaked out. He [00:57:30] just couldn't bring himself to walk into the police station. luckily when David checks the photos he has taken, he can clearly see a license plate number of the car that was following him.

[00:57:39] Adam Cox: So he's got some evidence now that actually the police can act on.

[00:57:43] Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly. So this is the thing that the police needed.

[00:57:46] So the police start an investigation, they managed to trace rental back to Veronica Z through her company credit card.

[00:57:53] So now they know that she works for eBay. Oh.

[00:57:58] They then discover [00:58:00] that the batch of pizzas that were prepaid for, They were paid for using a gift card that was purchased back in California. Uhhuh just a few miles from eBay's headquarters. Mm-hmm.

[00:58:11] They decide to contact eBay's HR to speak to Veronica. Remember HR have no idea any of this is going on. So they tell the cops that actually it looks like, according to their Intel files, that Veronica is currently in Boston or she looks like she's staying at the Ritz Carlton. And so the police are like, fine, we'll go then we'll have a chat [00:58:30] with her.

[00:58:30] Mm-hmm.

[00:58:30] Before they can, Veronica and James, they make a run for it to the airport, but their flight isn't for hours and so they check into a hotel room to wait it out.

[00:58:39] Meanwhile, the police get hold of Veronica's mobile number and they call it, she's freaking the fuck out. She does not wanna answer this phone call. She knows what she's doing is wrong. She's one of the few people that has rationale in this story.

[00:58:52] James decides to answer the phone and pretends to be her husband and he plays a dumb about where her whereabouts were and her

[00:58:59] Adam Cox: [00:59:00] activities. So he is lying to the police? Yeah. Deliberately. And she, I'm guessing she doesn't have her husband or I

[00:59:04] Kyle Risi: think she does. Yeah. She does. Her husband and kids and basically he manages to deflect them long enough for them to just, to get outta state.

[00:59:11] Veronica is still beside herself. Uhhuh. She's petrified. She's gonna go to jail. James keeps telling her in the hotel room that she just needs to lighten up and then to cheer her up, he puts on the film, old school storing Luke Wilson specifically the scene when the guy comes to the door and the man says,

[00:59:28] I'm here for the gang.

[00:59:29] [00:59:30] Bang. And Jas obviously finds this hilarious. Because they've sent like a bunch of swingers to the Steiner's house. Yeah. Which is just so cringe that this is where he got the idea from

[00:59:39] Veronica. She's obviously preoccupied with a fear of going to jail, but James cannot understand why she isn't laughing.

[00:59:46] Adam Cox: He just sees this as a massive joke, doesn't he? Yeah. He doesn't realize that he's actually committed a crime.

[00:59:51] Kyle Risi: So what he does, he's like, you don't get it, do you? You don't get like, let's rewind it. We'll watch it again.

[00:59:55] And he makes her watch it like a dozen times and she's like, I get it. It's [01:00:00] just not funny. I've got other things I need to worry about.

[01:00:03] James is one of those people who watches a film with you just to watch you watch it. Ah, reaction. Yeah, I get it. Yeah.

[01:00:09] He's so cringe.

[01:00:11] So the local police realize that this is of course a pretty serious, case of interstate cyber crime, right?

[01:00:19] They have to alert the FBI because it's completely out of their jurisdiction.

[01:00:22] The FBI, they decide to reach out to eBay who remember, have no idea that any of this is going on. This is a [01:00:30] black ops mission facilitated between Devon and the global security and resilience team.

[01:00:35] Adam Cox: When you keep saying that, it just always reminds me like, this feels like an army or military mission where you do have a black ops team, which is like top secret. You dunno what the mission is compared to, the regular army.

[01:00:45] Kyle Risi: Yeah.

[01:00:46] Adam Cox: This is eBay.

[01:00:46] Kyle Risi: Yeah. We have to remind ourselves that this is eBay.

[01:00:51] Ugh. So HR immediately they call in eBay's lawyers, who instruct an immediate internal investigation.

[01:00:58] Adam Cox: They would be like, [01:01:00] what the hell is going on?

[01:01:01] Kyle Risi: Yes.

[01:01:02] One of the first people they talk to is, of course, James, who completely shits himself and he starts thinking of ways that he can cover his ass. Specifically who he can blame for all of this.

[01:01:13] Well just show him the clip from the movie. I'm sure they'll understand. Yeah. So James quickly goes through the threat matrix. He's basically looking for any local name to say that they are the people who likely bought the gift cards to pay for the pizzas. 'Cause that's kind of the thread that they're leading with, right? Mm-hmm.

[01:01:28] He also then instructs the [01:01:30] team to start fabricating their dossier on the Steiners, basically to try and make them look crazy. Mm-hmm. Which he thinks will discredit their harassment complaints against them.

[01:01:41] They also then fake email chains to make it look like that. They'd only just been alerted to the threatening tweets and messages from this account in Samoa that the Steiners were receiving and they stage it. So it looks like they were actively discussing what action to take to help the Steiners.

[01:01:58] Remember that was the second part of their [01:02:00] plan.

[01:02:00] They even go as far as considering finding a real life Samoan in Samoa that they can say is the real two ecoline

[01:02:09] Adam Cox: but then all of this like coverup, I'm guessing is documented it.

[01:02:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah, they're gonna see through it so quickly.

[01:02:15] So then basically to bring it all together, they then get a member of customer support to call the Steiners to say, guys, we are fully committed to helping you through this. Please do not let this deter from your already positive [01:02:30] experience of using our platform. We will do anything that we can, but the Steiners at this point are like, this has escalated down like beyond customer support. This is now in the hands of police.

[01:02:40] So if you wanna speak to us, speak to the police. But it doesn't matter. All they needed was just that they had on file that they'd made the call and they were taking action to try and help the signers. They could fake the timestamps and stuff.

[01:02:52] Adam Cox: Sure. But then the thing is eBay reaching out to them, how is that helpful? Because it's all, as a result of some [01:03:00] person in Samoa who's basically eBay business has been impacted.

[01:03:03] Kyle Risi: the Steiners had already contacted eBay saying, we keep getting these messages. We think it's all about this, and they've just ignored them. 'Cause they're not at that part of the plan yet. Mm-hmm. So they've got that bridge. They can connect them later on. But this shows that they actually were connecting with them and trying to help them earlier than they said they were.

[01:03:18] Remember, this is all in a very short space of time, so like two or three weeks. Mm-hmm.

[01:03:21] They also try to cover up Veronica's real reason for beauty in Boston. Right. They try to make it look like she was attending a conference, which I'm amazed they even [01:03:30] attempted because what if they can't find a conference that matches what Veronica actually does in a day to day job? Right.

[01:03:34] If they're like, sorry Veronica. We couldn't find any conferences on like online security protocols, but we did find one on knitting. Um, what we will say is that we're exploring a new sellers category on yarn. Yeah. And that you were there to just work out what categories, what sub categories we need,

[01:03:52] Adam Cox: and we're gonna build a team, which you're gonna lead. Yep. And it's gonna be our yarn division.

[01:03:56] Kyle Risi: Yep. They pull her into a conference call Adam to [01:04:00] coach on what to say when the FBI finally interview.

[01:04:03] Adam Cox: Who is doing this though? Who's coaching? Oh,

[01:04:05] Kyle Risi: this was Stephanie Pop mum. Remember Mum Uhhuh of the division? Yeah. She called her into coach her through what to say.

[01:04:12] Adam Cox: But then is this all being done like secretly? Like the HR team, the legal team don't know any about this.

[01:04:17] Kyle Risi: Yeah. This is all the coverup. It literally takes hundreds and hundreds of man hours across the entire team. But eventually the FBI, they subpoena all of their documents.

[01:04:29] And it [01:04:30] is blatant that they've been trying to cover this entire thing up, like. They uncover a bunch of old deleted messages. They trace all the deliveries back to obviously eBay.

[01:04:41] Veronica, when they interview her, she's been coached. Remember? She completely falls apart under scrutiny. She's basically like, this is not worth it. I'm just like a soccer mom.

[01:04:49] Adam Cox: Yeah. I was paid to do it.

[01:04:53] Kyle Risi: She confesses to everything. It becomes just impossible to deny any of it.

[01:04:59] [01:05:00] Eventually. HR have no choice but to place pretty much every single member of that division, including James on administrative leave.

[01:05:08] because Veronica was just a contractor, she doesn't get that privilege. She is just sacked straight away without any severance pay. And yet she was from the very beginning, I do not wanna do this. This is insane.

[01:05:19] Adam Cox: Yeah. But then the thing is she shouldn't have done that. Right. True. She true.

[01:05:22] If she knows that she shouldn't have done that. True. And she still went along with it. Mm-hmm. I appreciate you got bills to pay and like maybe you think, okay, maybe it's not gonna be that [01:05:30] bad. Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine, but still Come on deep down. You know that's wrong. Yeah. You shouldn't have done it.

[01:05:35] Kyle Risi: So meanwhile, the US Department of Justice, they file charges against eBay and the employees with conspiracy to commit cyber stalking and conspiracy to TAM with witnesses they said in their filings.

[01:05:47] It was a determined systematic effort by a senior employee and employees of a major company to destroy the lives of a couple in Natick because they published content. The company executives did not like

[01:05:58] adding [01:06:00] for a while they succeeded, psychologically devastating the victims for weeks as they desperately tried to figure out what was going on.

[01:06:07] Adam Cox: What does eBay do with companies like Trustpilot? There's always negative press and stuff like that What are they basically hitting up every customer that's ever said anything bad.

[01:06:15] Kyle Risi: It just seems to be just a handful of people. And I think it is, you are completely right. They probably have criticism everywhere, but he's probably so absorbed with this little list that this is the immediate threat that he wants to be taken down.

[01:06:29] In [01:06:30] April, 2022, James pleads guilty and he is sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Wow. Yep. So he gets prison time.

[01:06:39] David Harville, he's the director of the Global Security and Resilience team. Uhhuh. Um, we don't hear too much about him. He just met them in Boston. He pleads guilty. He is sentenced to two years in prison.

[01:06:50] Stephanie Pop, remember the mom of the department? Mm-hmm. Um, also the one who coached Veronica to lie. Mm-hmm. She pleads guilty. She's sentenced to around a year in [01:07:00] prison.

[01:07:00] Veronica, she also ends up pleading guilty and she's sentenced to two years probation. Including one year of home confinement, but it was like during lockdown, so meant nothing. The best time for home

[01:07:11] Adam Cox: confinement. Yeah. So she, I guess she gets off the least one because I guess junior employee and two. Yeah, she confessed.

[01:07:18] Kyle Risi: Yeah. three other people also plead guilty and they are also sentenced as well.

[01:07:22] So those were the middle management and the lower tier employees. Mm-hmm. That all took the brunt of all the consequences.

[01:07:29] Steve Weimer, [01:07:30] however, he doesn't face any criminal charges whatsoever. He's our chief communications officer that was like, I want ashes.

[01:07:37] Like his texts were the, the threatening text, right? The one that James interpreted as like, okay, he wants them dead, Let me send a funeral reef and a grieving book.

[01:07:46] Adam Cox: So, because Steven didn't actually commit any of the crimes himself, he just has these, this messaging. Is that why he didn't get blamed?

[01:07:53] Possibly,

[01:07:54] Kyle Risi: yeah. It's probably it the same with Devin as well. Mm-hmm. But to me, he did send [01:08:00] a message saying, I wanna see ashes, eBay. However, even though he doesn't get criminal charges, they do fire him. Oh yeah. Hopefully.

[01:08:06] David Wang, he also doesn't face any criminal charges. eBay's internal investigation said that while his messages were. Inappropriate. The CEO didn't know about the stalking and harassment activities.

[01:08:19] Adam Cox: That's rubbish.

[01:08:20] Kyle Risi: That's bullshit.

[01:08:21] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[01:08:21] Kyle Risi: And while he isn't sacked as CEO, he does very quickly resign and his severance package is $57 [01:08:30] million.

[01:08:30] Adam Cox: No

[01:08:30] Kyle Risi: way. Just let that sink in for a second.

[01:08:34] Adam Cox: Is that, part of his contract, right?

[01:08:36] Kyle Risi: Possibly after this eBay, they agree to pay out $3 million in criminal penalties, which you would think would go to the Steiners, It doesn't, it goes to the US Treasury because apparently that money was a criminal penalty to the US Treasury as part of a deferred prosecution agreement.

[01:08:54] It's there to punish eBay as a company and to deter them from doing something like this. Again, it's [01:09:00] not compensational punitive damages in any way.

[01:09:02] This means that if the Steiners want damages, they're gonna have to pursue their own separate civil lawsuit against eBay.

[01:09:09] Adam Cox: So eBay appreciate largely the company weren't involved.

[01:09:14] Kyle Risi: They only pay 3 million.

[01:09:15] That's nothing to them. It's wild when the, when the CEO got a $57 million payout. To get rid of him. It's wild, crazy.

[01:09:23] And so Adam, this civil lawsuit is exactly what the Steiners did on the 1st of July, 2021. They [01:09:30] filed to sue eBay as a company as well as Devon Wang and Steve Weiner personally.

[01:09:35] Mm-hmm. And the trial was due to start in March, 2025. But it's now been scheduled to start on the 2nd March, 2026, which is the day this episode goes out.

[01:09:47] Adam Cox: I see. Yes.

[01:09:49] But this is five years. Yeah. After that as a long time in the making. Mm-hmm. And then this happened, what, in 2018 did you say?

[01:09:56] Kyle Risi: 2019.

[01:09:57] Adam Cox: 2019. So this is almost going [01:10:00] on for 10 years.

[01:10:00] I know. So they've had this ordeal hanging over them.

[01:10:03] Kyle Risi: Yes. Awful for them. And remember, like David is out there living without any, he didn't face any charges. So he's gone out of this consequence free. Mm-hmm. He has got such a fragile ego. He could easily just be like, I'm now gonna get there. He could show up

[01:10:18] mm-hmm.

[01:10:18] With a mask on and murder them. You would be living in fear every day that he was just going to

[01:10:23] Adam Cox: be there

[01:10:24] given that he's behind this. Mm-hmm. And that nothing's been done. He's not faced any [01:10:30] criminal prosecution. Yeah. That is wild. The only thing he's gonna get now is he is gonna get sued. That's it. Yeah. That's still not enough, is it? Yeah.

[01:10:37] Kyle Risi: I mean, it's not enough, we'll have to see. It's gonna be a very interesting trial. Apparently they're suing him for $700 million, like between the three of them, eBay, David Wang, and Steve.

[01:10:47] So they probably won't get that, but as they say, if you set the bar high, you'll probably land somewhere in the middle. Hopefully somewhere in the middle where it actually hurts.

[01:10:56] Mm-hmm.

[01:10:56] But get this for justice. Right. Since being fired, Steve [01:11:00] Wyer is now the president and CEO of a children's charity called Boys and Girls Club of America. So that feels good, doesn't it?

[01:11:08] Adam Cox: Yeah. How the hell did he land that? Did they not look at his past why did you leave your previous company?

[01:11:13] Kyle Risi: Yeah, and you would think I can understand big corporate America would be like, we don't care about your history. What's your performance like? This is a children's charity. Yeah.

[01:11:22] Adam Cox: Maybe he couldn't get another job,

[01:11:24] Kyle Risi: No, but the children's charity should be even more looking at his past, even with more scrutiny.

[01:11:28] Adam Cox: True. We don't want you around the [01:11:30] kids just Yeah. As long as you make us money or money for the charity.

[01:11:33] Kyle Risi: David Wang, he's now on the board of General Motors in a super high position, really, and again, carrying on as if nothing has happened. And I must confess, there were moments when writing this episode where I was a little bit scared about posting this episode because Adam, he's a man with a fragile ego.

[01:11:51] If he could easily come after the Steiners, he could easily come after us. If he doesn't like what we say about him, oh

[01:11:56] Adam Cox: God, what kind of stuff are we gonna get in the mail?

[01:11:58] Kyle Risi: I if we [01:12:00] receive a box of spiders and we are forced to raise them, I don't think I can love them because they're not mine. I don't wanna be a stepfather. Okay. Wow.

[01:12:07] Adam Cox: Too much of spiders. That's, that's probably just too much. Anyway,

[01:12:11] Kyle Risi: the Steiners, apparently they still run the e-commerce bytes websites. They have no plans to stop. But as we said, they're living in fear with Devon still out there not having faced any consequences, mm-hmm. So

[01:12:21] Adam Cox: I guess. Once there's a resolution after this case in March, then is there gonna be a movie? There should totally [01:12:30] be a movie? I feel like Ryan Gosling will be in it.

[01:12:32] Uhhuh. Um, that's all I know. Okay.

[01:12:36] Kyle Risi: And Adam, that is the story of the 2019 eBay stocking scandal.

[01:12:42] Adam Cox: I can't believe that this actually happened. It's crazy. It feels so farfetched. It feels like fan fiction. It does. And yeah. Poor Ina and

[01:12:52] Kyle Risi: David. Fuck I, I wanna keep calling him. I know it's Eer and David, but I keep going.

[01:12:56] Poor Eer and Steiner. I just, poor Eer Steiner. [01:13:00] Poor Eer Steiner. Yeah. Yeah. It's just crazy. And again, I had no idea the story even happened basically until I was doing some research and I saw this trial was coming up on the 2nd of March and I was like, stalking scandal. eBay.

[01:13:14] Adam Cox: yeah. I feel like it has been kept under wraps, or at least I've been living in a vacuum.

[01:13:18] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[01:13:19] Probably been kept under wraps. Right. A big company like, uh, eBay, who employs a communications chief officer. Probably a new one is probably invested in making sure this doesn't get out there. 'cause it's embarrassing. I'm [01:13:30] gonna,

[01:13:30] Adam Cox: I'm gonna have to do my own research. I need to find out more about this now.

[01:13:32] Kyle Risi: Oh, do you think I've just lied the whole way through?

[01:13:34] Adam Cox: This cannot be true.

[01:13:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it is. Anyway. Adam, before we wrap up, do you fancy doing some member shout outs?

[01:13:40] Let's do it.

[01:13:41] As you guys all know, HR have been hard at work assigning the ideal job roles to our certified freaks and big top tier members.

[01:13:50] Adam Cox: The only problem is while we know what your job title is, we don't actually know what your job description entails.

[01:13:56] Kyle Risi: So when you hear your name, take note of your job title. [01:14:00] Then using the link in the show notes, you can go ahead and submit your official job description through to hr.

[01:14:06] Adam Cox: HR wants to know what your duties involve, who you report to, and any major incidents that have happened under your watch.

[01:14:13] Kyle Risi: They also wanna know how you guys feel that you are tracking against your KPIs, and we'll read some of the best job descriptions on a future episode.

[01:14:22] Adam Cox: Okay, so this week a very big welcome to Sarah Sawyer, our regional disappearing act. Attendance [01:14:30] tracker. What do we lose or not of act? I don't know. Is that why we need Sarah?

[01:14:33] Kyle Risi: I think so. We have Lois Larson, our artificial Sawdust dispersion strategist,

[01:14:39] Adam Cox: Marcus Wizel, our tent support poll trust worldliness examiner.

[01:14:45] Kyle Risi: We have Molly do as well. Our noise complaint liaison for Overenthusiastic seals.

[01:14:51] Adam Cox: Heather Williams, our popcorn dust particle dispersion apprentice.

[01:14:57] Kyle Risi: And we have Kerry Johnson. Our deputy registrar [01:15:00] for unscheduled drum roll interruptions.

[01:15:03] Adam Cox: Welcome guys. It's good to have you all on board.

[01:15:05] Kyle Risi: Absolutely. And this week's job description is actually from Oliver Hepworth.

[01:15:11] Oliver was originally assigned the role of high stakes hoop jumping risk framework architect, but he clearly was like, fuck that, and has decided he's actually gonna be our human cannibal greaser.

[01:15:25] And so on reflection, HR has decided there is a need for the [01:15:30] human cannibal greaser.

[01:15:31] So Oliver says he reports directly to the human cannibal, obviously. Yeah. His role is to apply industrial grade lubricants with theatrical finesse to the performer, thus minimizing friction while maximizing drama, dignity and survivability. That's an act in itself. Yeah. I'd hate to see that.

[01:15:52] I would too. Only two major incidents so far, which is genuinely impressive considering this is his first week in the new role.

[01:15:58] The first incident was a [01:16:00] spot of chafing on the inside left thigh of a performer due to poor lubricant application.

[01:16:06] Adam Cox: You know, that's not the kind of lack of attention to detail we're looking for. Oliver.

[01:16:10] Kyle Risi: Oh, do you think we need to write him up?

[01:16:11] Adam Cox: Yeah, you might go on report.

[01:16:13] Kyle Risi: One strike. But also Oliver had to perform an emergency Degreasing after an Overenthusiastic application of Grease. By the Apprentice. So I think it's safe to say that he's probably redeemed himself in that area.

[01:16:24] Adam Cox: overenthusiastic application is that just a lot of grease Dunking

[01:16:29] Kyle Risi: sounds like [01:16:30] an ejaculate.

[01:16:30] And as for Oliver's key performance indicators, he's most proud of the fact that, the performer is still alive, though he does stress

[01:16:41] Adam Cox: only just Yeah. Well done for keeping the performer alive.

[01:16:44] And as a reminder, if you're a certified freak or a big top member and you didn't hear your job title this time, don't panic. Your role exists somewhere. Ens Sue's Filing Cabinet, and we'll read more of them on a future episode.

[01:16:56] But if you want yours now, message us on Patreon or Instagram and [01:17:00] we'll dig it out so you can get cracking on your job descriptions

[01:17:03] Kyle Risi: right then.

[01:17:03] Adam, should we, run this week's outro, then

[01:17:06] Adam Cox: let's do it.

[01:17:07] Kyle Risi: And that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium, an assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoyed the ride as much as we did,

[01:17:16] Adam Cox: and if today's episode has sparked your curiosity, then please do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app.

[01:17:22] It truly makes a world of difference and hells more people discover the show

[01:17:26] Kyle Risi: and for our dedicated freaks out there, don't forget that next week's episode is [01:17:30] already waiting for you on our Patreon. And as always, it's completely free to access.

[01:17:34] Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then join our certified Freaks tier to unlock the entire archive, delve into exclusive content and get a sneak peek at what's coming next. We'd love for you to be part of our growing community.

[01:17:46] Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember just handling it internally is often we're the worst decisions. Get their wings.

[01:17:54] We'll see you next time.

[01:17:55] See you. [01:18:00]