I am super careful about this privacy issue and so far so good. I am on this forum too much, so if they were gonna "get" me, it would have happened by now. LOL!
Note: My time is never wasted here. I have saved a bundle and garnered some wonderful ideas as well as timesavers!
Just MHO. . .

My personal email was hacked. I fixed it with a password change and by logging off when I wasn't actually reading my mail. The only place I have let my email be known is in personal messages here. So it is not out of the question in my opinion.

Most of this stuff comes from people's email which has been hacked. The contacts are copied and sent all kinds of stuff.

Do you know the sender? Never open an email from someone you do not know. Delete it immediately, before opening.

If you do not know the sender but reply back, they now have confirmation that yours is a working email address.

If you do know the sender, advise them their email has been ompromised.

And as much as I know this stuff (I work with computers for a living) I myself was caught with a bogus e mail sent from one of my son's old email addresses, which he no longer uses.

Also: The moderators advise you NOT to put perosnal information in your posts for the world to see.

If you have email your info is easy to find and any spammer with a 'spider' can 'web' any email ever posted online, private or not. emails are like phone numbers and addresses. If ever listed in a directory once, it's available to find.

Hubby is an IT guy, and from what he can tell, my personal info is safe at this site as long as I do not post it.

This is a private board, but that doesn't make it "private" as far as nobody being able to read it but us. So, yes, all your posts on the open forum are accessible on the Internet. Your PM's are not, though.

I watched a show on A&E about computer hackers. Professional spammers/hackers (which can be a bored teenager) have programs that most business IT depts have no clue about. The FBI has to make deals with hackers just to learn their methods. Hackers can make big money selling email and name lists to internet spammers.

Actually - that is not a given - there are many ways in which your email account can be hijacked. Also, these online groups might not have sold your info - but been hacked as well.

My guess is that the PM's here are safer than using some online email accounts such as Gmail and Yahoo. I have several email accounts - one of which I use for online forums, another for FB, another for junk sign ups and one for bills and friends.