When you use Craigslist to sell or buy something, you communicate by sending an email to the other person in the transaction. To protect the privacy of buyers and sellers, Craigslist keeps email addresses hidden. But even with this security system in place, you may want to take extra precautions when responding to Craigslist emails.

Craigslist provides a "cover" email address that forwards to the recipient's real email address. Only Craigslist knows the real email addresses of both parties. This way, if one of the people involved turns out to be untrustworthy, they don't have the other person's email address.

When you buy or sell items on Craigslist, you communicate through the website using a two-way email connection.

When you respond to a message (i.e. someone has something for sale that you want to buy), you'll see an address that looks like this: [email protected].