Moving to Lisbon and the visa office lost my paperwork twice

I was trying to get my D7 visa sorted for Portugal and the local consulate misplaced my entire application, not once but two times. After the second mess up, I found a local fixer through a Facebook group for digital nomads. He met me at the office with a new set of papers and basically walked me through the whole thing in person. It cost an extra 200 euros but saved me months of waiting. Has anyone else had to use a local helper to get past a bad government office?

3 comments

3 Comments

path471mo ago

Honestly, that 200 euros sounds like money well spent. I had a similar nightmare in a different country where my papers just sat in a pile for weeks. Finding someone who knows the system and the right people to talk to is a total game changer. They cut through all the red tape and confusion that would take a normal person forever to figure out. It feels wrong to have to pay extra, but sometimes it's the only way to get things moving. I'd do it again in a heartbeat to avoid that stress.

ray6131mo ago

Remember when my friend paid a fixer, @path47, and got his visa in two days?

the_cameron1mo ago

Ugh, that's the whole system now. It's not even about bribes, it's just paying for basic competence. That 200 euros basically buys back your own time and sanity.