01 June, 2005 | 21:05
Rob Chesnut
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Hi... I'm Rob Chesnut, and I'm the head of eBay's global Trust & Safety organization. By now, I think the entire eBay community is familiar with the problem of spoof/phishing emails, and I'm sure that many of you have gotten one or more of these fraudulent messages in your home or business email account over the last year. Spoof emails have become a serious problem for banks and major ecommerce sites, and they are a significant threat to ecommerce globally. They are crafted by bad guys and appear to come from a trusted source, such as your bank, your ISP, or eBay itself. They often contain all the correct logos and headers that give them the appearance of legitimacy. These emails usually contain some “call to action,” some urgency designed to trick users into clicking a link that takes them to a legitimate-looking Web site where they enter their personal financial information and passwords.
As the sophistication of these emails has increased, it has become evident that we all need help to weed out these fraudulent emails from our systems. Over the last year, eBay has rolled out one industry-leading product, the eBay Toolbar with Account Guard, that helps protect users from spoof sites by alerting users whenever they are about to go to a spoof eBay or PayPal site. If you don't have the eBay Toolbar, I strongly urge you to go to the eBay Security & Resolution Centre and download it today.
But it's clear that we need to do more. That's why I'm particularly happy to announce that eBay will be rolling out one of our most effective measures to combat spoof - the second phase of My Messages (available in My eBay). With the second phase of My Messages, launching in late June, you can trust that important eBay account-related messages you receive in My Messages will be legitimate.
From a safety perspective, the bottom line is this - If the email affects your eBay account, it's in My Messages. If you get an email that looks like it's from eBay about a problem with your account or requests personal information and it's not in My Messages, it's a fake email. Please forward it to spoof@ebay.com.
The initial phase of My Messages, launched earlier this year, has been a read-only Inbox for members to receive information about buying, selling, and other activities and events on eBay. This second phase of My Messages allows for two-way communication with eBay and with other eBay members. Soon you'll start receiving:
- Important account-related messages (e.g. billing invoices, password change notices, and other Trust & Safety messages),
- Customer Support responses and
- Member-to-member communications
... ALL in your My Messages Inbox. This will ensure you never miss an important message because of spam blockers or a full email box. Additionally, you will continue to get a copy of these communications to your registered email address.
Since upgrading My Messages is a large global project, you'll start noticing some visual changes to My Messages in a few days - folders/folder management, consolidated views of all unread messages, the ability to forward a message to your address, and other changes. However, the bulk of the new features (and all of the new messages) will not be available until late June. We'll keep you updated on our progress on this General Announcements board.
I hope you will take some time to become familiar with the upcoming changes to My Messages by reading the Frequently Asked Questions Help page and taking the My Messages Tour. After the launch, we will be hosting a Workshop to review the new features and answer member questions, so stay tuned for more details.
Sincerely,
Rob Chesnut
Senior Vice President, Trust & Safety
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