Loading…
4
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?
4 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In4 Comments
path476mo 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.
6
laura_wilson4mo ago
Ngl I read an article last week about how these fixer networks actually existed back in the 1800s too, just for different stuff like getting land titles or permits. It's wild how this whole grey area of paying someone to push papers through has been around forever. Saw a documentary too where a guy in Brazil said he paid like 50 reais just to have his driver's license application actually looked at by someone. Makes you wonder if the system is designed to be broken so they can sell you the fix.
10
ray6136mo ago
Remember when my friend paid a fixer, @path47, and got his visa in two days?
4
the_cameron6mo 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.
1