Should I use a temporary email for online purchases?

When you want to purchase items or services online, most of the time you will need to create an account on that site.  You may even have to share your email and personal address.  While some people may be ok with this, not everyone feels that such a thing is ok and that on its own can be quite impressive, to be honest.

The great thing to note about temporary e-mails is they can help you with all of that.  Not only does the system work very well, but it also brings you some benefits.  Yes, there are some cons too, but they don't take away too much from the entire experience as a whole.

Pros

Right off the bat, these temporary e-mails can be great if you just want to purchase something from a site and then move onward to another one.  Since there are so many sites out there, you don't want them to know your info if you want to have a one-off purchase.  It is a very good thing to focus on, and it can provide you with some interesting results in the end.

When sites just require your email address to send you a receipt, and you don't plan on buying anything more... what difference does it make if they send an email receipt to a temporary email address or your personal email address? It's up to you, but you may be fine just accepting the receipt at a temporary email address so that you don't ever have to be concerned if you're going to get a bunch of unsolicited e-mail.

Moreover, if you purchase stuff from a site like Craigslist, you don't have to worry about any potential challenges in regards to communication.  You just use a website like EmailOnDeck.com in order to create your temporary e-mail address, and that's it.  Things like this shine, since they help protect your identity in the online world, and it's something that you do not want to miss.

Plus, the temporary e-mail is also great if you want to conceal your identity during potential trades.  There are lots of sites where you can trade items as you see fit.  And while it may seem ok to share your personal address with the other person you want to trade, he may be a hacker.  So, it's a much better idea to protect yourself this way.

Cons

The only downside is that the temporary e-mail will expire, so if you want to purchase from a site multiple times and you trust them, you may want to create an account with your regular email.  Plus, it will be a lot harder than expected to just connect with the seller.

Also, if you need to access your order history from a website and you forgot your password, you can run into a real difficulty in resetting your password.

Though it's not exactly a major downside, but it shows that the temporary e-mail is great just for the one-off purchases.  It works if you never worked with that particular website before and you want to protect your identity.

As you can see, it's a very good idea to use a temporary e-mail if you want to purchase new products and items just one time.  Especially if the only reason you are required to give an email address is so that they can send you a receipt.

Ultimately it's up to you to decide if you want to use a temporary e-mail address when purchasing online.  Hopefully, you now have a better idea of when you would prefer to use a temporary e-mail and when you would prefer to use your personal e-mail when buying things online.

Stay safe out there!