Primary email address invisible to recipient; adding email address; changing primary email address?

[Flibbertigibbet]

Hello,

I have a problem, and I am hoping someone here has overcome this same problem. Before you read any further, I feel obliged to point out two things:

1) This is a fairly long post; I cannot distill all the relevant information into a couple of sentences. If I am unclear about any of the details, please do not be hesitant about asking me to clarify anything: I am here to learn.

2) Before you take the time to respond, I respectfully request that, unless you have *direct* experience in dealing with this exact same problem, please do not reply. I am not making this request to be mean (there is quite enough meanness in the world as it is), but rather, because there is enough at stake that I must get this right the first time.

As you will soon see, if I do not get it right the first time, I am **bleep**.

My problem is fairly straightforward: I have a personal account, and want to send money to someone *without* revealing my primary email address. However, according to the limited information I have, if I add a new email address to a personal account, and send money from it, my primary email address is *still* displayed to the recipient.

My three questions are:

1) If I add a new email address, and try to send funds from the new email address, will the recipient *still* see my primary email? As mentioned above, this is a personal account, and I have been led to understand that this is the case for personal accounts.

2) Can I change my primary email address to a new address, send the funds, then change it back to the former email address?

3) Assuming only method number 2 will work for this, is there any sort of limit to how many times I can change my primary email address to a new email address, then switch it back?

In essence, I trust this third party enough to send them money, but not enough to hand over an email address that they can potentially abuse. With any luck, I am not the first person who has run into this problem and there is a simple, straightforward way to get this done.

Can you please help me?

[sharpiemarker]

@Flibbertigibbet 

1) No. One thing I also noticed very recently that must’ve been changed within the last 6 months when I look at my acct activity is that instead of displaying the email address, PayPal replaced it with a link to “Message [the other person’s name]” under “Contact info” section. When you click on it, a message box pops up to send message to other party so no email contact. There is option to block and an option to report the user. This is for personal acct sending friends and family payments though, not goods and services payment which is hard to know if someone’s email address is primary or not anyway.

2) Yes.

3) No.

Hope this helps.

[Flibbertigibbet]

Hello,

[quote]
There is option to block and an option to report the user. This is for personal acct sending friends and family payments though, not goods and services payment which is hard to know if someone’s email address is primary or not anyway.
[/quote]

Yes, I understand that. However, just to be on the safe side, I am taking it as read that *any* email address of mine, primary or not, that PayPal shows to a third party is going to get abused. So I appreciate your letting me know that what I am enquiring about is somewhat uncertain territory even for seasoned end users such as yourself.

(I must admit that I am utterly baffled by the lack of information from PayPal regarding this very problem. I suppose it is possible, but I have a difficult time believing that I am the only chap who has wondered what, exactly, money recipients see on their end when I send them funds.)

Re changing my primary email address: is it as simple and straightforward as changing it, then responding to some sort of verification email that PayPal (presumably) sends to the new email address? Or is it a more involved process?

(And is utilising throwaway email providers a problem? I ask because some sites will not allow members to use email addresses from throwaway domains.)