CLOB data appearing too large

Hi.

I have a table containging a CLOB column,

when I do as select off the DBA_SEGMENTS view it shows that this table is using up over 3gig worth of space. - but there is only a hundred or so rows in it.
When I use the DBMS_LOBS.getlength package it tells me that on average my data per row is about 730Kb.

I know 730Kb is right cause we take data out of this table use it in an web application for users to view over the Internet and there are 1 row for each user about 100. (Data is compressed XML)
there is no way this app would have worked if the data was really 3 gig - cause you cant download that over the web in reasonable time.

Are there any bugs in Oracle 8.1.7 with LOBS that could cause this or do i have any storage parameters wrong.
Or is this simply normal??

Thanks,

j

Show us your lob & table storage parameters.