Delivery. UPS. Hello? Mr. Steiner. Ms. Steiner. Hello.

Ina. Don't say a word.

Ina and David Steiner had slid off the living room couch and were huddled behind it for cover.

David gulped, his eyes darting between the front door and the boxes that sat on their desk in the living room.

The Steiner's were used to regular deliveries. They bought and sold collectibles and ran an e-commerce forum that provided advice for other online sellers. But these deliveries were different.

Over the past few days, packages had been sent specifically to terrorize David and his wife.

A box of live cockroaches and spiders.

A manual on surviving the death of a spouse

accompanied by a funeral wreath, and a Halloween mask of a bloody pig face.

Fifteen minutes after they opened that last package, a threatening DM appeared in Mr. Steiner's

inbox at all caps.

Do I have your attention now?

Who would do this to them? If I were Keith Morrison, this would be the part where I'd tell you that

David has a scorned ex-lover set on revenge, or that I know was an unassuming suburban Massachusetts

drug gangpin.

But this isn't Dateline.

It's corporate gossip.

Yes, the villains targeting the Steiner's were employees of one of the most famous tech companies

in America, eBay.

They were directed to terrorize the couple by the company's own executives, aggravated by the Steiner's critique of the company on their niche e-commerce blog.

Wait, am I reading that right? The chief executives at eBay were so deeply but heard about a small comment on a niche blog that they crashed out into a goodfellas-esque

rage-fueled paranoid spiral and orchestrated a highly illegal stalking and harassment campaign

...