Dear LPG readers,

I suspect it has been discussed on LPG’s pages and will happen again, but if telling this little story helps one reader avoid this particular trap, I think it will be worth reading. 

The easiest way is to get my daughter to write down our story, so here it comes. But first, let me give you a little background…

At least 30 years ago, I was going to retire to Jamaica, where I was born. My husband and I had plans to return when we retired, but when the time came, we decided to stay because we don’t have that many close relatives left over there, and all our children live in London.  We realised that we might need them to be nearer as we got older.   Unfortunately, he is no longer around, and the travel insurance fees they want to charge for a person my age is now as high as the fare, so I don’t think I will ever be returning.  I have decided to sell the apartment we bought to move back to.  

Straightforward enough, you might think, but the story starts here…  

First, I needed a Jamaican tax reference number, and to get that, I needed my birth certificate, which, after 88 years, was utterly lost.  So, I applied to get a copy of that, but the authorities over there needed me to produce all sorts of ID so they could be sure I was really me.  I realised that that was required, but then there was another problem.  They needed a birth entry number to get the birth certificate, which is an entirely different application. Still, we got that sorted, armed with that number, and applied for the birth certificate correctly. 

There is an application process for that, too, and… because I have been away from my homeland for so long, I would have to produce so much more ID than I would in England. The extensive list included the usual things such as driver’s licence and birth and marriage certificates.  There were also some more obscure additions, such as proof of where I was christened, reports from the school I attended (all that time ago?), my children’s birth certificates and the all-important recent utility bill.  My next hurdle was getting a copy of my marriage certificate, but that would always be easier because we were married in the UK.  Yes, I have lost that, too, but my daughter went to Google to find out how to get a copy.  

We found a website that offered the service for £28.00 and even more if you needed it quickly, which we found somewhat expensive. So, we took a walk down to the registry office. It should only cost £11, which I thought was a lot, but at least that was less than half the cost we could have paid. 

The problem is that when you Google, the websites that offer the service at inflated prices pay to ensure that their websites are at the top of any list of options that you are offered. The secret is to look for a webpage code (a URL—the page reference information that is usually in a box at the top of the webpage) that includes the characters ‘.gov’ somewhere after the ‘www. bit’. 

Getting this far has come with its obstacles and opened my eyes to something else that might be good for readers to be aware of, but that will have to wait until part two…

Although the people who create these more expensive ways to do something that you can do yourself are not deemed to be scamming anyone, in a day and age where pennies count as much as they do, we really need to guard against getting caught in this way…

For now, I want to make sure that any readers trying to pay for a service that the government offers more cheaply are aware of the little companies that will do the job but at double the cost. When you Google any service that the government offers, add ‘.gov’ to your search note and make sure that it is included somewhere in the URL of the webpage you go with…

I am still working on selling the house, but I want to remind readers about this money-saving tip… 

PD, Grove Park

PD found some online information about what a .gov website should look like and where to go if you need to get a copy…

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She also found some online help about applying for these Jamaican documents but stresses that it is not always as easy as the videos make it sound… 

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