Sell glass panels on OLX with precise measurements they arrive and it doesn't fit in their car

We removed some glass panels from our bathroom and put them on OLX (like Portuguese eBay) The listing contains the exact measurements of the panels (we measured them obviously) and we sent those again when they buy it They then come pick up the glass at 5pm. They arrive with their tiny car and of course the glass never ever fits in there, you could eye ball it, but they still try, and of course it doesn’t fit. They look confused. This makes makes me wonder does anyone in Portugal know the concept of a ruler. Because this isn’t the first time this happens. Artist rendition of the situation:

Portuguese companies only finish things for 60% then disappear

So we spent €30,000 on solar panels and batteries for our house here. In August we talked the solar company and the owner/boss came to our house discussing the options. A smart guy, nice, and explained how it would work. 2 batteries and 2 lanes of solar panels on our roof. The time to install would be next month in September because it was busy and holiday season. All good part 1. We paid 50% of the money. In late September, there was still no sign of the solar panels or the guy. No communication. Note: this is not a shady seller, this is the official Tesla distributor of batteries in Portugal. We messaged and called him and he said it would now be soon in October, because it was busy. Okay these things can happen, one month delay. All good part 2. Then mid-October, there’s no solar panels. No communication. We ask again, he says he’s on holiday so cannot help us now. Okay, holiday, I guess people have to relax. All good part 3. We then keep messaging him asking for a timeline, and we’re getting more annoyed with him. He says he’ll come by. Late October he finally shows up (almost 2 months late now). He acts like everything is normal (it’s not), he says it’ll be done in 4 days, and drops of 2 African electricians (probably Mozambique or Angola) and then he disappears again. The electricians do not speak a single word of English but have lots of questions for us which we try to answer. They’re visibly annoyed with this ordeal of being dropped of without any guidance by a Portuguese guy. All good part 3. They then drill through our roof water drain and start shouting us for help. I say what you want me to do? You should call your boss LOL. The technicians are scared to call their boss (the guy who showed up at our house and dropped them off) and instead ask us to call him. So we do and then Facetime him. He’ll say it’ll all be solved. We say there’s now a hole in our wall and water will enter. He says yes you need to find a guy to fix this and then I will pay you. I say “No YOU drilled a hole in my wall, YOU need to find a guy”. What the actual fuck? He says “Okay no problem I will”. He doesn’t find a guy, but lets his electricians spray rubber in the hole. Not the solution recommended by our construction guys but okay it works. The next few days are just endlessly disappointment. The electricians show up late every day, around 1pm they arrive, ring the doorbell, then tell us “we’re going for lunch”. Okay why you tell me this LOL. Then they literally disappear for 2-3 hours, come back 4pm, do some work, and disappear again at 6pm. One day they don’t show up at all, I ask the boss where his people are, he says “it’s raining now in our town so we can’t install”, I look outside and see sunlight. He comes by. I show my iPhone weather app that shows it’s sunny here (different than the town he’s from), I tell him to add our town on his iPhone in the weather app. He asks me what weather app I have. I say literally the iPhone weather app. 😂👌 All good part 4. The next day the electricians show up as usual late in the afternoon. I ask the boss via Whatsapp if he’s actually gonna make it in the 4 days. He says yes no problem. I ask the African guys how it’s going, and if they’re gonna make it. They say absolutely not because the weather. I look at the weather and it’s gonna rain tomorrow. I say they should start installing the solar now because today is sunny. Any way, this stuff just goes on and on and after 2 weeks there’s still no solar panels installed. We have to keep messaging the guy to get anything done. Then we find out WHY he was delaying it so much. Our neighbor saw we were installing solar panels, so he sold solar panels to our neighbor. To save money he delayed the whole operation, so he could install 2 solar panels in the same week and only pay for one crane. 🤦 Finally he finishes the job. It works. I go to the roof to check and it’s chaos. There’s metal bars, screws, plastic packaging, and just a total mess littered all over the roof. They installed and then never cleaned up their mess. In Portugal they have the best sales presentation, then you pay and what you paid for is always delayed, then you have to haunt them for months and when then it’s done for just 60% and then they disappear! So I say fuck it, I’ll clean it up myself. One thing good about Portugal is it makes you highly self-sufficient, because their quality of work is such absolute bottom-tier, you have no other choice.

Heartbroken by Portugal, unable to move there with the family.

I applied for a GV in 2020 with wife and 2 kids. We planned to move there in 2023 and applied for schools and got everything ready. Unfortunately / Fortunately we got pregnant with our 3rd child at that time. We delayed the move to Portugal because moving mid pregnancy was not an option. The entire family has been on Golden Visas from 2020. We have endured delays, last minute biometric appointments for us and our kids in different locations (every renewal cycle), and a lot of other bureaucracy of which is too much to list. I have taken the language certificate and applied for citizenship. My wife in process with her language classes. Now, we are unable to move to Portugal because we cannot get a family reunion visa for my youngest baby. We are going to have to turn down the school admissions for my older kids and cancel our apartment rental contract. My lawyer tells me I cannot even begin to apply for a family reunion visa for my child until my visa is renewed because it expired earlier this year and we didn’t get an appointment yet. Once we do apply, they say it takes up to 3 years for it to process. We wanted to move to Portugal and the bureaucracy is keeping us away. Now, with the new timelines, it looks like we will never move there with our kids. Possibly around 20 years down the road we might be able to retire there, but for now it’s but a dream. We are heartbroken.

The core of Portugal's problems — a 'poverty mindset'

Here is a short story that illustrates Portugal’s problems. We (again) need new bathroom taps. We had new taps fitted a year ago because our last taps failed. Our tradesperson said, ‘I will look out for second-hand taps to save you money’. NO. Please don’t. I want GOOD taps — I don’t care how much they cost. But he turned up with cheap, 20-euro taps. And now they’ve failed. I have to find another tradesperson to fix them. I run a business — it costs me hundreds of euros to waste time talking to tradespeople when I could be working. I’d happily buy 100 euros taps if they are reliable. But that’s not possible — because everything in Portugal is optimised to be cheap. Ironically, this is why everyone in Portugal is poor. Because everything is broken and nothing works. No one can get ahead or build anything impressive. People stay poor, forever, because of their poverty mindset. Successful people and cultures build things properly the first time.

Portuguese election campaigns are beyond stupid

It’s election time. Our daily life is ruined by cars covered in political posters driving through our town, blasting out shitty Portuguese music and slogans with cheap sound systems. You can barely understand a word they’re saying. None of this will influence anyone’s decision. It’s moments like this that you realise how stupid the politicians in this country are. Honestly, I think Portugal has the most low IQ, retarded politicians I have ever seen.

Lisbon Airport premium parking is unsafe

We paid for Premium parking at Lisbon Airport. When we came back the staff asked us “do you drive a Peugeot?”, we don’t. She said someone entered the car parking and crashed into lots of cars. Then a crazy homeless in a wheelchair showed up who lives in the parking and the staff knows them, they’re a regular. Then I saw this video that just happened there too, mass break ins in most of the cars. It’s ridiculous to pay for Premium parking if there’s no 24/7 security. As always in Portugal, premium services do not exist and Portuguese businesses do not understand how to offer them. All they understand is charge high amounts of money, do not offer any service, and exploit the customer and workers.

Ordered a bouquet of roses, this arrived

So for my girlfriend I ordered this bouqet of roses First the order got cancelled for no reason (after I scheduled it for the morning the day before) So I ordered it again, then this arrived: 5 old roses in a bouquet of ugly leaves??? The product pic had 12 beautiful pink/red roses What a joke? 😂😂😂

Portuguese telecom provider gaslighting customers for no service

I own a company, and I went on vacation to the Azores, to a place called Mosteiros, for 10 days. When I got back, a sales rep from NOS (a Portuguese telecom provider) came to my office trying to sell me a communications package. I told him, “No thanks, I’m already with NOS. I just spent 10 days in the Azores with no signal whatsoever. It was chaos!” And then he hit me with the most amazing explanation: he said NOS had actually done extensive market research and found that when people go to that part of the Azores, they’re usually on vacation,so they don’t want to be bothered. Which is why NOS intentionally didn’t invest in coverage in that area! 🤯 I mean… only in Portugal could someone twist a complaint like that into a feature! 😂 The mental gymnastics were impressive, I’ll give him that.

Order never delivered after 2 years, but I only had FIVE DAYS to claim it

I've been waiting 1 year and 9 months for a package to be delivered with status "Your package will be delivered shortly", but it's never been delivered. It’s a small item, ~30 EUR total cost, and it was part of a bigger order so I pretty much forgot about it. Today, reviewing old orders, I just realized about this order. The website clearly says that the order was shipped but not delivered. I remember that back then they showed an alert on the website saying that orders were delayed because of a truck driver strike. So I kept checking for a few days without updates and then forgot about it. It's now been been almost two years, so I wrote to the company asking for a solution. They said it can’t be fixed or refunded because I only had FIVE DAYS to claim it starting from the ESTIMATED date of delivery, even though their website clearly shows they delivered it, and even though back then they claimed there was a truck strike to justify the delays.

Luxury Apartments Portugal Experience

I’m in short term housing for a luxury apartment from a seemingly trusting seller (they have 30+ luxury properties in Lisbon and much more in Spain, Germany, and others). The apartment is beautiful, ignoring some minor things as it’s just an old building. However, arriving in the apartment, I was shocked to find: the floor is completely dirty and dusty, walking for a few footsteps and your feet were dirty the kitchen had dirt marks all over the furniture and a smell I saw two cockroaches in the kitchen (explaining the dirt marks from their poop) it’s a long term apt, but I would expect that the trash bins would come with plastic bags for your first day. there were none. also one bedroom has an empty soap. actually one really nice thing is that the apartment came with 250g coffee from “the coffee”, which was a really nice surprise. unfortunately it was pre-ground finely which is for espresso machines, but there is only a french press which requires coarse grinds :( Yeah yeah I know Lisbon has a heated real estate market, but paying nearly $4k a month for an uncleaned, unmaintained and cockroach-filled apartment is completely crazy.

Portugual has the worst customer service on planet earth.

I order everything on Amazon Spain. Once or twice a year I try a Portuguese retailer and I’m reminded why I never, ever spend money with Portuguese stores. Order a new TV and pay extra for ‘24-48 hour delivery’ Three days later ask, ‘Where is my TV’ ‘Your order is processing’. No explanation or apology. They just state the obvious fact — ‘Yes, we haven’t posted it. Fuck you.’

Portugal has the worst tradespeople on planet earth

Our boiler has been broken for nearly a year. We have cold showers every day. This is because whenever I think about hiring a Portuguese boiler engineer, I realise that I will have to wait in all day, only for them to never turn up — and probably lie to me. I would rather keep having cold showers than deal with another stupid, lazy, dishonest, timewasting Portuguese tradesperson.

Solar guy switches off our water boiler because he says "solar water heater" is sufficient in summer, then of course we had cold showers

So a guy came to install solar panels (like electric) on our roof and he saw we have the typical Portuguese solar water heater: Then he checked our electric boiler (the thing heating our water) and saw it’s on and said: "You guys are crazy! You only need to use your electric water boiler in the winter, in the summer you should only use the solar water heater, it’s sufficient!" and then he proceeded to switch off our boiler. Then this morning we woke up and went for shower and we had had luke warm and then after 5 minutes cold water in shower 😂😂😂 Of course I expected this but still wanted to just see it happen. It's so interesting Portuguese standards of living are so much lower, they literally accept having cold showers if it saves them money Every single thing here is about saving money while disregarding life quality It’s complete opposite to Kardashev Scale, they won’t spend money or energy, they won’t invest, which means they also never get a return on anything, they never grow, which is why the economy here is so stagnant.

Brand new home has the cheapest and slowest LAN cabling possible (from 30 years ago)

We bought a home, it’s just 2 years old, brand new. It came wired up with internal LAN network cables, so every room has a LAN port, useful to put access points (APs) to distribute the WiFi over the house. So I installed a Ubiquiti router and APs recently, amazing product and through that I discovered the network cables they installed are a standard from 30 years called CAT5, and they cap out at 100mbps (!!!). Meanwhile the internet you get these days is gigabit fiber from 1gpbs to 10gbps. So you’ll be able to use 1-10% of your max speed inside your home. Why? Because of course Portuguese every single time will cheap out and use the lowest cheapest of anything. FE here means Fast Ethernet, which is CAT5 @ 100mbps.

Reducing Portugal's corporate income tax rate from 31.5% to 20% would save this country

One of the biggest issues with Portugal and why it’s so poor is that it has a negative business climate and that’s directly due to this: Portugal has the highest corporate income tax rate in Europe at effectively 31.5%, comparatively Spain is 25%, similarly Netherlands is 25.8% and those are economies outperforming Portugal by far. One article in Economics Observatory writes: Raising the income tax rate has by far the least negative effect on GDP. In the long run, the simulation shows that the economy pretty much returns to baseline levels, with a slight increase in potential output. The opposite is true for corporation taxes. A rise in the corporation tax rate leads to a severe and negative initial fall in GDP. Potential output also decreases. This leads to lower productivity, higher inflationary pressures and deteriorating economic circumstances in the long run. A rise in indirect taxes (such as VAT) does not affect GDP quite as badly as a rise in corporation taxes, but it does affect GDP more substantially than a rise in income taxes. Indirect taxes operate largely through the price channel, increasing the prices of goods. By artificially raising prices, demand is curtailed. Lowering Portugal’s corporate income tax rate to 15% to 20% would make it more competitive than Spain, France and Italy, while not making it a tax haven by any means. Portuguese would return to the country to start businesses, and the foreigners that are already here would move their companies here too.

It's impossible to post ANYTHING that arrives on time

I posted important legal documents to my solicitor in the UK. I paid for the fastest, most secure CTT postal service on Friday 13th June and was told they would arrive by Tuesday 17th June. I just received a notification that they will arrive a week late — on Tuesday 24th June. Portugal deserves to be poor. The Portuguese deserve to be poor. This country is lazy, stupid and dishonest to the core. Everything bad that happens in Portugal is 100% their fault.

Stuck in Limbo

I came to Portugal in 2022 shortly after getting married on a D7 visa. Sadly, my spouse wasn’t allowed to come on an accompanying visa. I was asked to apply for reunification from SEF. After seven months, I got an appointment and got my residence card. Then the nightmare began. There were no slots for reunification in 2023. When it started in 2024, I tried everything to get one but it didn’t work. Fast forward to January 2025, I used a lawyer and sued Aima. I have been waiting for six months now with no response from Aima. During the wait period, my residence permit expired. Now my lawyer worries that Aima could refuse to give me an appointment because the card isn’t valid. I tried to complain on the yellow book and got a response from Aima that they cannot give me an appointment because I do not have a child in national territory. During this time, my spouse has tried to visit my thrice and he’s been denied a visa despite having all the required documentation. So now it’s been three years away from my family. I missed my father’s burial, can’t see my husband. Stuck in literal hell and some people think i deserve this.

Please kindly sign ! For the unchaining of dogs (and, sometimes, they have cats in chains too!)

I am not normally a person that publishes such things, but, as many of us know, there are dogs living their entire lives on a chain in Portugal. This is horrendous animal cruelty at the worst level, and also contributes to never ending barking at the slightest simulation. Please help and sign the public petition brought on by civilised people, which do exist in Portugal. They need 12000 signees till the end of the month of June, of which only a thousand or so still to go. https://peticaopublica.com/mobile/pview.aspx?pi=PT100136 Thank you

Coaches and trains have no soap or water

I often travel across Portugal via coach or train. It’s never pleasant to use toilets on public transport, but I was shocked the first time I realised there was no soap or water. I asked the coach driver, ‘Is there any soap or water?’ He grunted, ‘NO’. Sadly, this is common. You’re expected to touch filthy taps and toilet seats and have no way to clean your hands. Sometimes I really, really hate this country. I cannot stand the laziness, sloppiness and low standards. And yet the breathtaking arrogance — as if Portugal is still some kind of superpower.

Portuguese do not have a sense of time and they will never arrive on time

This is just normal part of the culture I guess. It happens in countless situations. If they say they will deliver a EUR 20,000 home gym order at 13:00, you will be waiting at 14:30 and there will be not a single person who has arrived. Nor will they message you what’s going on. You then have about 40% odds that it will arrive around 16:00 or 17:00, but more likely they will say “difícil hoje” aka “today difficult” and they will come in a week. It’s just mind boggling how anyone gets anything done in Portugal when nobody respects punctuality even to the slightest.