fingerhut finger hut charges for shipping but wont allow new customers to ship to another address for christmas. so thus we would pay for having to ship it to our home and then pay again to ship to another, Internet

The Idea of a "scam" is for the company to someone come out ahead.  How exactly does Fingerhut profit by making  you ship the item once you get it from them?  Unless you are going to come back and say that they are in cahoots with the USPS, UPS, or FedEx the answer is simple...they aren't.

If you have decent credit you could get a regular or even a store credit card through many stores.  But if your credit is so trashed that no one will extend you even a single dollar on credit, then Fingerhut is a company that allows you to purchase things on "credit".   They require new customers to have the items shipped to their address is to make sure that these people actually are who they say they are.  The way that just about guarantee this is to have it shipped to your address.

Fingerhut sells merchandise at 2-3 times what any normal store sells it for(and would actually be what I would think a RoR would have been written on).  They reason they are a higher cost and have these restrictions is because they deal with people who haven't proven they can handle credit.  There is a very good chance that many of these people will never pay for the things they have ordered.  Knowing the real address helps them go after the "deadbeats", if the need be.

So if you having to pay for shipping to another address is going to cause you great financial difficulty then perhaps you can spend a little less on the gifts, or look for a place locally that you can get items at a cheaper price.  After all it is not the price of the gift, it is the thought that counts.