Dear LPG,

This is a bit of knowledge that I did not think I would ever have to know, but now I do I think I should pass it on.

Readers might remember my recent post about the Tesco E-gift cards being offered to Lewisham Residents most affected by the rising costs of living.

I did get my voucher but found something else that I thought might confuse those who might have never come across one before.  I have always thought of a voucher or gift card as being one of those little credit-card sized bits of card that you can buy at the checkout in the shop, but it is a little more complicated than that.

As I mentioned before, until my niece explained I did not know what an e-gift card was.  It is much like the gift cards that can be bought in many shops like Tesco, but the problem is that the ones we are being sent are arriving electronically implying that you must have an email account and a smart phone to be able to receive them, and though I do have a smart phone it is as much as I can do to make and receive phone calls on it. 

My niece showed me what the internet says about what an e-gift card actually is.  The idea is that you take the information to the shop and present it displayed on your phone’s screen so that it can be scanned which works perfectly unless you don’t have, or can’t use your smart phone that well.  But there is another alternative.  

The actual e-voucher this letter offers does come via the internet but it can be printed.  The actual e-voucher is the bar code that you are sent, and it is also good to know that the barcodes should come with the corresponding code written out in numbers or letters somewhere near it so that if the barcode is not recognisable to the electronic scanner, it can be entered manually. That can be a fiddly job for the person at the till, but it should work just as effectively.

I hope that explaining will help a few people understand it all a bit better.

 CJ, Sydenham

LPG found a little information about E-gift cards which might help…

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