The strategy by ebay here was less dumb than the article makes it sound. They were harassing the victims while pretending to be disgruntled ebay sellers. Thei

The strategy by ebay here was less dumb than the article makes it sound. They were harassing the victims while pretending to be disgruntled ebay sellers. Their plan was to step in, as ebay, and help track down and stop the harassment, thereby earning the victims trust and goodwill. They hoped that the goodwill would get the victims to publish less negative stuff about ebay and that it would cause the victim to identify the operator of an anonymous troll account (which they seemed to believe was the victim or at least someone working closely with the victim). I think their goal in learning the identity of the anonymous troll account operator was to take legal action against them. They might have gotten away with it too except the victims got a photograph and an accurate license tag for one of the ebay employee's rental cars.