The head of eBay's global Trust & Safety organization Rob Chesnut posted a message on eBay's boards about an initiative to combat spoof emails, a type of fraud known as phishing.

eBay will be rolling out the second phase of My Messages, available in users "My eBay" section of the site. The initial phase of My Messages, launched earlier this year, was a read-only Inbox for members to receive information about buying, selling, and other activities and events on eBay. The second phase of My Messages allows for two-way communication with eBay and with other eBay members.

Any account-related messages from eBay will also appear in My Messages, so users can verify whether an email is legitimate or not.

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 progress on the General Announcements board.

http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200506.shtml#2005-06-01090517