Dear LPG 

I have just started learning about internet shopping and would like to say that the article LPG with the title ‘Another Way To Be Safe When Paying Online’ caught my eye.  So I got an extra current account and now I am really enjoying myself.

I bought a lot of my smaller Christmas presents online this year and found that when each one arrives and I start unwrapping the brown paper, apart from the lack of patterns and bright colours on the outer layer, it feels like a mini Christmas to me.

I am learning all the time but wanted to share this gem of knowledge with you.  The easiest way is to tell you a story.

I decided to buy a pot plant for a very good neighbour and I enjoyed every minute of checking the different internet shops that sold them.  I settled for the one in the picture and it looked really good on the laptop.  I don’t go out very much so I was sure that I would be there when it arrived and when it did, the delivery man was at the door with a beautifully transparent presentation box, but he was holding it in one hand and not the two that I thought he would need.

The moral of the little story is… ‘Don’t forget to check the size of the article you have purchased’.  I always seem to remember when buying clothes and shoes but you can imagine my disappointment when I opened the door on that occasion.

I have to watch the pennies and am still practising my online shopping skills, and would remind any readers who are just getting into internet shopping to acquire yourselves two very important internet shopping aids.

1, A tape measure (so that when you look at the dimensions of any item you are going to buy you can check the size with the measure.  You would be surprised how much disappointment can be avoided in this way!)

And

2, A little ‘L’ plate somewhere near the screen ( so that when you look at it you remember that you are a relative internet-shopping novice)  I hope it will remind you that you need to put a maximum limit on the cost of any single item you buy until you become  more proficient.  Returning things is not as much fun as buying them and can often be quite tedious and costly.

JR, Eltham