JimH wrote:
...even for boating related purchases.

I received this email today from a friend. The scam is real so be careful
when purchasing gift cards:

============================================
Yes this is true. Here is the link that has the information to back up this
email:

http://www.snopes.com/fraud/sales/giftcard.asp

"Well the crooks have found a way to rob you of your gift card balance.


If you buy Christmas Gift Cards from a display rack that has various store
cards, you may become a victim of theft. Crooks are now jotting down the
card numbers in the store, and then wait a few days and call to see how much
of a
balance THEY have on the card. Once they find the card is "activated", they
go online and start shopping.



You may want to purchase your Christmas gift card from a customer service
person, where they do not have the Christmas Gift Cards viewable to the
public.



Please share this with all your family and friends.

=============



Those who buy *Holiday* or *xmas* gift cards need not worry and should
disregard this warning. ;-)





If you read the Snopes article you would see they really do not consider
this a big deal, for this scam to be a problem the card has to be able
to be used when the "CARD IS NOT PRESENT" and the card does not have
additional security info. I personally don't know why anyone gives gift
cards, cash is so much easier to spend.

But for those who worry about non issues and other "problems" such as
"xmas", it gives them one more thing to worry about.

The abbreviation of "Xmas" for Christmas, long reviled by many
conservative and Low Church Christians, is not nearly as blasphemous as
many contend. Rather
than a sacrilegious removal of "Christ" from Christmas and replacing him
with an
unknown, as some claim, the "Xmas" abbreviation has a long history in
the church.
In Greek, the language in which the New Testament was first written,
"chi" (c or C),
which is almost identical to the Roman alphabet "X," is the first letter
of the word
"Christ" (cristoV, or as it would be written in older manuscripts,
CRISTOS).
In fact, the symbol of the fish in the early church came from using the
first letter
of several titles used for Jesus (Jesus Christ Son of God Savior) that
when combined
spelled the Greek word for fish (icquV, ichthus).

In the early days of printing when typesetting was done by hand and
was very tedious
and expensive, abbreviations were common. The church began to use the
abbreviation "X"
for the word "Christ" in religious publications. From there, the
abbreviation moved
into general use in newspapers and other publications, and "Xmas" became
an accepted
way of printing "Christmas."

see http://www.cresourcei.org/symbols/xmasorigin.html