Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

eBay Execs Charged After Sending Roaches And Spiders To Harass Couple Who Criticized Them In Newsletter

eBay Execs Charged After Sending Roaches And Spiders To Harass Couple Who Criticized Them In Newsletter
Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

In a story so outlandish that it could only happen in 2020, six former eBay employees are being charged with charged with conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses after they waged an extensive campaign of threats and disturbing deliveries against the editor and publisher of an online newsletter because they were unhappy with the newsletter's coverage of eBay.

James Baugh eBay's former senior director of safety & security, David Harville, eBay's former director of global resiliency, and four other executive employees (Stephanie Popp, Brian Gilbert, Stephanie Stockwell, and Veronica Zea,) sent several disturbing things including a funeral wreath, a bloody pig mask, and live spiders and cockroaches to the Natick, MA man and his wife.


Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said to WBZ Boston:

"This was a determined, systematic effort by senior employees of a major company to destroy the lives of a couple in Natick all because they published content that company executives didn't like."
"For a while they succeeded, psychologically devastating these victims for weeks as they desperately tried to figure out what was going on and stop it." 

6 eBay Executives And Employees Charged With Sending Threats, Bloody Pig Mask To Natick Couplewww.youtube.com

The executives were reportedly inspired by the film Johnny Be Good, where colleges attempt to lure in a rising high school football star by bribing him with money, goods and even their coach's wife.

 


 


 


 

According to the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, the executives also sent threatening anonymous messages to the couple, including "allegedly [sending] private Twitter messages and public tweets criticizing the newsletter's content and threatening to visit the victims in Natick."

The company's strategy was to harass the couple, pretend to notice the harassment later and then offer to step in and help to try and influence how the couple wrote about eBay in their online newsletter.

 


 


 


 

An internal investigation by eBay uncovered the actions, most of which had been perpetrated within the security team, and fired those employees in September.

Among their other plans were to "break into the couple's garage to install a GPS device on their car."

 


 


 


 

The couple in question remain anonymous, as the investigation is still ongoing.

The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney's office did not confirm nor deny that the prosecutors were looking into pressing further charges.

More from Trending

Alex Cooper singing 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame'
@MBDChicago/Twitter (X)

'Call Her Daddy' Host Alex Cooper Gets Brutally Booed At Wrigley Field After Painfully Off-Key Singing

If there's one thing that all baseball fans can come together about, it's the importance of their traditions—and songs.

In the seventh inning at Wrigley Field during a match between the Cubs and the Cardinals, popular Call Her Daddy podcast host Alex Cooper was invited to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and brought two backup dancers with her.

Keep ReadingShow less
Linda Yaccarino
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

X CEO Resigns Day After AI Chatbot Grok Praised Hitler In Alarming Series Of Antisemitic Tweets

Linda Yaccarino—the former NBC Universal executive who later took the reins at X—stepped down as CEO of billionaire Elon Musk's platform after two years on the job just a day after Grok, the platform's AI chatbot, went on antisemitic rants and openly praised Adolf Hitler.

Grok issued deeply antisemitic responses on Tuesday following a reported software update that encouraged the bot to embrace what developers described as the “politically incorrect.” Taking that directive to heart, Grok responded with a series of disturbing posts that included praise for Hitler and even a statement expressing its aspiration to become a “digital version” of the Nazi leader.

Keep ReadingShow less
Black and white photo of a falling spider.
Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

People Divulge Their 'Rare' Phobias That People Refuse To Believe

I am a SEVERE claustrophobic.

I have struggled with this issue for decades.

Keep ReadingShow less
Ted Cruz
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

'The Onion' Rips Ted Cruz With Brutal Headline After Yet Another Vacation During Texas Disaster

The satirical news site The Onion had social media users cackling with its brutal headline mocking Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz for once again being out of the country when Texas was hit by another deadly natural disaster.

Cruz faced considerable national backlash after he flew to Cancún while millions of people went without food and water as a result of the February 2021 Texas power disaster. At least 246 people were killed directly or indirectly; some estimates suggested as many as 702 people were killed as a result of the crisis.

Keep ReadingShow less
Elon Musk and Grimes
Kevin Tachman/Getty Images for Vogue

Elon Musk's Ex Grimes Calls X Platform A 'Poison' And 'Theatre' After Social Media Hiatus

Claire Boucher—who performs and creates under her stage name Grimes, but prefers her birth name or just "C" offstage—recently returned to her musical persona's social media accounts after taking a hiatus for her own well-being.

Once extremely active, she noted on X in April:

Keep ReadingShow less