# One of the World's Largest E-Commerce Companies Stalked a Journalist Couple Who Criticized It

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663/one-of-the-world-s-largest-e-commerce-companies-stalked-a-journalist-couple-who-criticized-it
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663/one-of-the-world-s-largest-e-commerce-companies-stalked-a-journalist-couple-who-criticized-it.md
Podcast: [*“Yesterday, I Went to Mars ♡”*](https://stenobird.com/podcast/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663)
Published: 2026-07-19T05:41:44+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/makotowillolympusmons/episodes/One-of-the-Worlds-Largest-E-Commerce-Companies-Stalked-a-Journalist-Couple-Who-Criticized-It-e3m8qcf
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/fcce555c/podcast/play/123021135/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-6-19%2Fad4171b8-7507-ce71-d34e-d00664d5012e.mp3
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Duration seconds: 162

## Resource

This episode looks at a remarkable and unsettling case: eBay executives and employees who, in response to critical journalism from a couple running a small e-commerce news site, sent live cockroaches, a funeral wreath, and a blood-soaked pig mask to their home — and reportedly planned physical surveillance. The FBI eventually intervened, convictions followed, and eBay paid fines. It was no movie plot. It sits with what that sequence reveals — the moment an organization decides it shouldn't have to face criticism, something has already broken down inside it. There's a turn toward something more personal: the experience of hearing difficult feedback from customers in an eyewear business. Long waits, limited frames, explanations that didn't land. Words that sting, especially after a day of genuine effort — but words that, with some distance, tend to point exactly toward what needs to change. The phrase "Whatever It Takes" — the reported internal motto behind the eBay campaign — gets quietly reframed. Doing work that genuinely pleases people, building a place where customers leave glad they came: that's the version of the phrase that holds up. A small reflection on how an organization treats the voices that challenge it, and why that response, more than almost anything else, tends to reveal its true character.

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