How come: people send email to my private address

How can this be possible?
sometimes people from this bbs contact me using my privat email address that i had to fill in for signing up.
but then some other mails i can only read in the control panel..??

Um, what BBS are you referring to specifically?

i was talking about devshed forums. but could be i misunderstood how it works...
i think i probably got the first mail forwarded by devshed mailer and just pressed reply to answer instead of answering here on the forum. then of course the other had my email
but some PMs from here are not forwarded to me, can anyone tell why?

People can contact you via your e-mail address if you have your preferences set up that way. Notice on your posts above that there is an "email" button. If people click that button, they will be e-mailing directly (via a form on the forums, so your e-mail address is never revealed) to the e-mail address that you provided when you signed up.

Complicating matters, there is also a "pm" button. This button allows people to send you a "private message." A private message appears only on the bulletin board system, and is not sent to your e-mail. The advantages of private messages over e-mail are that you can be informed while you surf the forums that you have recieved a private message, your mailbox isn't cluttered with e-mail about forum postings you may have made, and both parties' e-mail addresses are kept completely private (since e-mail is not involved at all).

Making things even more confusing is the fact that you can have the forums inform you via your e-mail that you have a private message waiting.

For more info, check the faq. Just click the "f.a.q." button way up at the top of this page.

tnx fyi