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Thread: [Guide] Add a Secondary Email to Paypal

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    Lightbulb [Guide] Add a Secondary Email to Paypal





    Hi Friends,

    Are you casually using the same Paypal email for every transaction, on every website from ebay to Neopets, from clraik to your neighborhood lady who makes tamales, from that random website that sells you pre-leveled Pokemon to Etsy where you got those cute mittens for your cat? And is that email the same one that you use for other things, like logging into social media, fan forums, or as the recovery email for certain websites we all know and love?

    Don't you ever worry about those transactions all being linked together to your single email address if just one of those websites or merchants had a data breach, or did something unethical with your information? (You probably do now... Sorry!)

    You can create one small shield between yourself and that possibility by adding a secondary email address to your Paypal account and only using that email address for specific websites or transaction types.* While there is nothing you can do to limit them sharing your name (this is a legal requirement that you cannot exempt yourself from unless you have a business Paypal account), by processing your transactions with different websites under different email addresses, a leak by "amazingpreleveledpokemon.com" [totally fictitious entity] cannot in any way connect you to your reddit.com/r/superamazingpokemon admin account PokePowerLeveler69.

    (No one ever has to know you didn't level those Pokemon yourself.)

    There's no photos for the real step 1, because I can't image capture it -- it's just advice.




    STEP 1

    Never utilize an email for Paypal that you also use for another important service or account.

    Paypal can be trusted but only so far, and the first layer of protection between accidentally incriminating yourself by paying for something illegitimate (on purpose or by innocent error) is by not connecting your paypal email to your real, everyday email or a even a secondary email tied to one for any game or social media account. Just don't do it.

    If you don't have another email account you can use, it's very simple to create one. Gmail is a better choice than something like Yahoo, but Outlook/Hotmail would work, or Apple if you're an iOS user, I think.

    Once you've completed step 1, you're (unfortunately) ready to behold my questionable image editing skills, so head on to Step 2.


    STEP 2

    Log in to Paypal and go to Settings



    You should find yourself in the first page of settings, "Account."


    STEP 3

    Click the Plus sign in the bottom right corner.




    STEP 4

    In the floaty pop up, enter your new secondary email address. (Remember that you want an email address that isn't connected to any other online accounts if possible!)






    STEP 5

    The email that you added will show up now, but with Unconfirmed noted beneath it.




    Paypal is going to now send you 2 emails. One to the current Paypal email address, and one to the new email address you just added.

    The one sent to your current email needs no action -- it is provided as information only to make sure that this was you adding new emails to your Paypal.




    The one sent to your NEW email must be opened.




    Inside is a confirmation link. You'll need to click on this link in order for your new email address to go from Unconfirmed to ready to use on your website(s) of choice!



    Voila, you have a second email on your paypal, and are on your way to a tiny bit more privacy!

    But unless you completely wanted to change your paypal email you are not quite done. Read on, grasshopper.


    STEP 6

    Paypal assumes that when you add an email, it's because you (now or eventually) want to replace the old one. So any time you add a new email, Paypal will automatically default the new email address to your "Primary" email address.

    Your Primary email is the one that receives email notifications when someone pays you, when you pay someone else, and it's also the one that gets all the garbage email that Paypal doesn't let you opt out of.

    If you (reasonably) do not want the new email to be the one that receives all these messages, just click on the "Update" button underneath the OLD email address, and tell Paypal to put things back the way they were, thank you very much.






    And there you have it.

    You can repeat this process quite a few times.

    Paypal allows up to 7 total email addresses to be utilized on your account.

    You can use your new emails as the sending email by logging in with them, just as you would with your normal Paypal email, or as the receiving email, by telling your buyer to send funds to your new email, rather than the old one.

    While there's nothing you can do about Paypal sharing your name, and potentially your address* depending upon how the seller is set up, you can at least limit your potential exposure by categorizing your transactions into specific email accounts. Just remember the emails are all going to keep going to your original primary email.

    If you end up deciding to use more than 1 additional email address, I strongly recommend keeping some kind of "key" or small spreadsheet that reminds you what email to use for Paypal for what services. Here's an example:

    Email Address Use for Site Notes
    [email protected] Grandma, Personal Primary
    [email protected] clraik cK
    [email protected] amazingpreleveledpokemon
    [email protected] reddit


    Hope this helps you!




    * Small tip about Paypal and your address, and this is just something I ran into. Once upon a time, I made a purchase at a retailer online and had it shipped to one of the local stores, but used Paypal as my payment method. Paypal, in its infinite wisdom, saved that store's address in my address book. So now whenever I make a purchase for online goods and whoever I'm buying from has zero need to know my address, I just choose that random outlet mall. Next time you shop online, see if this little trick might work for you.





    graphics by Flordibel & Menine <3

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