The worst of all bureaucracies

Let me start by warning you – this is a very long post, and the story is not in fact completely over. With that said …

The Portuguese people are well aware of the fact that navigating their governmental and regulatory systems can be difficult. They will freely admit that there are too many different forms and too many different agencies, and that instructions and processes are often incomplete or unclear.

But they will all agree that one agency wins the prize when it comes to unhelpfulness, inefficiency, and down-right ridiculousness – Instituto da Mobilidade e dos Transportes (the IMT), the Portuguese equivalent to a national Department of Motor Vehicles.

My adventures with the IMT have been fraught with misinformation, rudeness, delay, and frustration – in other words, a normal business day for them.

When you move to Portugal from the US, they will allow you to exchange your valid driver’s license from any state for a Portuguese license without having to take a test. You even have two years to do it, and all you need is to provide is an official copy of your driving record.

Officially, your US license is valid for six months after you arrive, so in a perfect world you want to get right on this. However, I got an international license before we left which is valid for a year, so I figured I didn’t have the same time pressure.

At the beginning of February, I downloaded my certified driving history from the Oregon DOT site and used the IMT’s online system to apply for my license exchange. I sent them PDFs of everything, as requested, and copy of the front and back of my license and received an acknowledgement with an official application number.

One month later, since I hadn’t heard anything, I went online and used their contact form to request an update. Their form asks for name, phone, email, and a description of the issue – I included the application number for reference.

The next day, I got a very abrupt email from someone at the IMT telling me that if I wanted help, I needed to include my NIF – my Portuguese tax ID number.

You’d think if that were required it would be mentioned somewhere, or on the form or something, wouldn’t you? Well, OK, no big deal – I responded to the email apologizing and including my NIF. I got a response back that they were still checking my documentation and that things were slow because of COVID.

By the way, that’s everyone’s excuse … all government offices are open, but you can’t go to them because of COVID without an appointment, which can take weeks – even when you walk by the offices in question and see everyone sitting around chatting.

Anyways, I waited another month, then sent in another request for information. This time, I included my NIF – and got back a snippy reply that they couldn’t answer any questions without my NIF, which means they didn’t even look at the message before responding. I replied and directed them to read my original message, at which point they told me they were still reviewing the documents.

It’s now April, and we decided to apply for Kristie’s license exchange, too. I hadn’t done this right off the bat because I wanted to see how the process went – since I now knew the answer was, “Slowly,” it seemed best to not lose any more time.

When we applied for Kristie’s license, though, the online process was different – it had changed since I did mine. Hers was a little simpler, and she got an acknowledgement back right away, although it came from the Santarém (a city near Lisboa, nowhere near us!) branch of the IMT. The next day, she got a request to send payment and to choose which branch she would use for photos and fingerprints.

A week later she got a request to mail in her old US license. A week after that, she was notified of an appointment at the Porto IMT branch. She went and although her she had to wait 20 minutes after her appointment time she was in and out in less than five minutes. A week after that, her new license arrived in the mail.

It’s now May … I send another inquiry, pointing out that my wife has actually received her license already, and asking how much longer. They don’t respond until my third try, and then only to say that they’re still reviewing my documents.

As this has been progressing, we’ve mentioned what a pain it’s been a couple of times to restaurant buddies. Mónica, who is the owner of the Pátio do Duque petiscaria (tapas bar) tells me that her sister used to work for the IMT and still has some friends there, and volunteers to have her do some digging on my behalf. I gratefully accept the offer of assistance!

Mónica calls me a couple of days later with some information. According to what her sister was able to find out, my application was put on the inactive pile because I didn’t make a payment after the application was opened.

“But I didn’t get a request to pay,” I said. “No problem,” says Mónica – just send them a message explaining that, and they can resend the payment email, and then everything will start moving. I did so the next day, and … silence. Again, and again no response.

There is a IMT call center, which I had tried calling before, but there was a long phone tree in Portuguese that scared me. At this point, I girded my loins and called them again, making the selections to the best of my ability. After being on hold for about an hour, I finally got through to someone – who even spoke English!

Unfortunately, she told me I had selected the wrong choice on the phone tree. Although she was able to tell me who I needed to talk to, she wasn’t able to transfer me directly, so I had to go back to the beginning.

After another 30 minutes, I got another person, but I made the mistake of asking if they spoke English. I’m not 100% sure of what they said, but it was apparently something like, “No, you’ll just have to try again,” because with no further warning they immediately popped me back to the beginning of the queue!

45 minutes later, I get my third person. I’ve spent the intervening time with Google and Liguee, translating some key phrases to describe the problem. The woman I was talking with spoke very little English, but with some effort we were able to not only agree what the problem was, we actually figured out the reason why I never got an email. Evidently, the email was sent to the wrong address (they dropped a letter).

This, by the way, is a prime example of why some of the Portuguese processes are so difficult – their systems don’t talk to each other. My application was correct, the acknowledgement was correct, the correspondence I had received so far was correct (although a lie), but the payment request email address had been manually input and someone just goofed up.

Anyways, we corrected the email, but then the woman told me that she needed to send the request to the appropriate people, she couldn’t resend the email herself. She assured me, however, that I would have it the next day.

Guess what? No email.

Mónica checked in with me, and when I told her the latest, she was furious. She went on the IMT website and entered a complaint on my behalf – to which they responded they couldn’t help without my NIF (which she had of course included).

I braved the phone tree again. Interestingly, in the week between attempts, they had changed the choices – there was now an actual choice for license exchange. I excitedly selected it – and the phone automatically hung up on me. It also hung up on me the next three attempts. On the fourth attempt, I got a message that the lines were busy at IMT, and they couldn’t accept calls at this time, and then it hung up on me.

I tried again the next day. The first five times I got the “lines busy” message, but I finally got through to someone.

Now, I have to say this … yes, I’m in Portugal, and I need to learn Portuguese, and I have no right to expect people to speak English. However, on a phone line dedicated to international drivers’ licenses exchanges, where the majority of people are historically from the UK, I personally see the value of having someone who is bilingual manning the phone.

The very nice lady I spoke with had a tremendous amount of patience, and we were able to verify (again) what the problem was, that the reason was (again), and what the corrected email needed to be (again, because it was still wrong in the system after the call the previous week). She (again) told me that she would need to forward it to the proper department, but that I would receive the payment letter within a day.

Five days later, with Mónica’s help I wrote a carefully worded email explaining the problem and asking for assistance. I sent this directly to the IMT Porto office’s Customer Help email box.

The next day I got back a snippy reply that questions relating to license exchanges should be directed to the office in BRAGA! They let me know they would forward my message, but also instructed me that I shouldn’t email them directly and should only use the online form.

I couldn’t help myself – I responded to them (and copied Braga) that I had used the online form multiple times and been ignored, and that I would appreciate it if someone took enough interest in the problem to resolve it finally.

Miracle of miracles … the next day, I received an email request to make payment. I did so and received the confirmation of payment received.

“Hot damn!” I thought to myself. “It’s really happening!”

And a week later, I received the request to mail my old license in … but they also included a “guide” – a PDF of some other guy’s application for a replacement license, which is a different process altogether.

I forwarded this to Mónica and asked if she could explain what I was seeing. Her answer: “They sent you some other guy’s provisional license!”

So, I replied directly to the message, pointing out that an error had been made and asking for clarification. Of course, there was no response.

However, for an extra level of hilarity, I received a reply to one of the complaints I filed on the IMT website, using their form. My message to them was very detailed about how I had been trying to get the payment letter and kept being promised emails that I never received, and two and a half weeks later their answer consisted of, “You must wait for your documents to be analyzed.” Not. Even. Trying.

I tried calling back and asking for a manager, or someone who spoke English, and got immediately put back into the queue, then hung up on again.

After waiting a week and still hearing nothing, I took a huge leap of faith. I put together a packet with as much documentation as possible and went ahead and mailed it with my Oregon driver’s license to the IMT with a request that they schedule my picture and fingerprinting at the Porto office as soon as possible.

With Kristie’s license, it took about a week to get the photo appointment after she sent in her license. I waited two weeks, then used the online form to make an inquiry. A week after that, I followed up with an email directly to the Braga office.

Miraculously, I received a response back from them within a few days. I was directed to contact the call center to schedule an appointment.

Even more miraculously, when I called, I didn’t get hung up on or misdirected. When I connected to the assistant, I started off by apologizing for my bad Portuguese, and she said, “Oh, do you speak English?” Amazing!

This last woman was tremendously helpful and patient. We went through the whole case, start to finish. The weirdest part of the conversation was while we were talking about getting an appointment – no, of course you don’t call the Call Center for that.  There is an app that you’re supposed to use, although that information is nowhere on the IMT website. Also, the app is only available in Android, which means that if you have an iPhone, you can’t make an appointment … Huh?

The good news is, I don’t actually NEED an appointment – IMT will use the photo and signature I have online for my citizen card on my driver’s license. Kristie needed an appointment because she only has a residency permit so far, which is in a different system.

We also were able to sort out the fact that the IMT sent me someone else’s provisional license – the assistant was not only able to verify that, but she was able to email me my correct provisional license while we were on the phone.

Overall, we spent more than 20 minutes on the phone, but as a result I now have a temp license good through the end of the year, and assurances that I should be receiving my official license within the next 30 days.

Of course, once I get it, I’ll need to get the address changed … which you can’t do until after you change the address on your tax ID (NOT your citizen card!), and then you have to go IN PERSON to an IMT office, which means you need to make an appointment using the app that doesn’t exist … so the story isn’t completely over, but at least major progress has been made.

Stay tuned!