Thomas S.

Health insurance:

16 months into the insurance, I got an extremely painful sinusitis, which needed surgery. Instead of approving it, they falsely claimed it was a pre-existing condition with no justification whatsoever and no information about how to complain.

Luckily, I found a scan report from 1997 that contradicted AdvanceCare's baseless claim that this was a pre-existing condition. Also, Portuguese insurance law only allows exclusions of pre-existing conditions for 12 months.

The discussion with them prolonged the strong pain with two weeks, during which I had to eat loads of strong painkillers to be able to function. This is institutionalised torture and a breach of contract.

They finally approved it, but not without refusing cover for one of the necessary acts. Thankfully, Trofa Saúde accepted to do it anyway.

Twice, I had to discuss with them to get cover for vitamin blood tests, which are included. The same happened with ENT consultations. Months of discussion each time, but they finally paid. Of course they hope most people give up.

When I wanted to give notice to switch to another insurer 3 months before the expiry, they refused to accept the notice until 30 days before expiry. This is in violation of Portuguese insurance law.

Generali Tranquilidade happily break the law when it suits them. It seems to be a part of their business model, which includes exhausting the insured with endless discussion.

Car insurance:

When a careless driver reversed into my car, it was very difficult to follow the status of the claims handling. I tried to call them, but as I don't speak Portuguese yet, they said an English speaker would call back. They never did. I had to call my insurance agent. It was the other driver's insurance that had to cover the cost, and the repair was finally done correctly. At least I got the included replacement car.

I am going to get rid of the rest of my Generali Tranquilidade insurances. I don't trust them any more.

Excellent choice and availability. Reasonable prices for products and postage. Ships to many countries. Accepts company accounts for reverse VAT. Smooth process from ordering to delivery.

They keep scraping email addresses off a database and spamming people without consent. That is rude and undermines trust.

They have made a complete dog's breakfast out of the redesigned paymentpractices.net website, with huge, space-wasting fonts taking up a whole page just for a header, the failed Windows 8-style tile design for search results instead of just a list, making it much more difficult to find the desired result, a convoluted 'Follow' function (to get updates about chosen agencies) where you have to ❤️ the agency, then set notifications to send updates about favourites – instead of just a simple 'Follow' button, etc. Icons like different star ratings in different colours have no hover texts, so you don't know what they mean. The search results are full of fluff like phone numbers, which are not needed to identify an agency. They have focused on being 'cool' and 'fashionable' instead of making the site as functional as the old design. Complete disaster.

Vodafone ask their retailers to spam businesses, using email addresses scraped from Informa DB and other such places where email addresses are sold for the purpose of throwing the equivalent of waste into mailboxes. I always give a 1* rating when exposed to this nuisance.

I had a business account with Banco BPI for over three years.

The account maintenance fees are in line with other Portuguese banks, and the offer is ordinary.

When originally setting up the account, it was very difficult to enable the debit and credit cards for online payment, as they require different two-factor authentication apps. The business credit card notably requires the personal banking app, not the business app. No instructions were provided for how to do all this.

Security is not up to a current level, as the online banking password is limited to 8 characters, and without two-factor authentication for login. There is two-factor authentication for each transaction, but they still use SMS for this, which is not completely secure.

Handling account statements is complicated by the fact that informational messages from payers are not printed in the statements. Instead, you have to download them one by one from another place.

I had notified them over three years ago that the initial, temporary company name had been changed to its permanent name. This was reflected in the account statements. But when sending a new credit card a month ago, they had printed the old company name. I complained about it, but they declined to do anything about it.

They notably replied: 'The current company name is too long to be printed on your card. Therefore, if you would like a replacement, please provide an alternative name to be printed on the card.'

So does that mean that they concluded that since the new name is too long, then let's just use the old name? Nobody could figure out simply to truncate the name to the available space?

As I have been waiting for nearly a month for them to sort out this trivial matter, I no longer trust them to handle a serious incident in a professional manner, so I am closing the account. From now on, I will only be using a fintech account, which provides better service, no maintenance fees and better functionality. And they pay interest on the balances.

I don't appreciate your spam.

Today, Amazon.es attempted to debit my credit card for Prime membership, an initial €0.49, after I had clicked on No thanks.
I declined it in my credit card app, following which the Amazon screen went blank and I couldn't continue to pay for the articles.
When I tried again, back from the basket, again, I reached a blank payment screen asking for €0.49.
Support was clueless. I asked them to escalate.
A few hours later, I tried again, and the same happened again, except that this time, a link allowed me to continue to the normal checkout and pay for the articles without Prime.
A later reply from support was no more than blah blah even though this is dishonest and a clear violation of consumer law. This company is sinking further and further in its aggressive behaviour.

I do not appreciate to be spammed without consent. You scrape my email address from a database and then start spamming me. That is bad manners.

I only buy petrol from Galp because I get Continente vouchers, as their undiscounted prices are not always competitive. The tech used for the unmanned stations is as slow as if it was running on PCs and modems from the 1980s. Each action (for example reacting to a Continente card or voucher scanned) takes up to a minute. On a Sunday with low activity even. There is no information on whom to call if you need help. Once, the pump was out of paper, so my receipt was not printed. The pump should warn you before you start if it is out of paper. The interface is also confusing when it asks if you have a discount card, as it does not explain that a Continente card should be scanned AFTER filling (only after you have answered the discount card question does it tell you).

I never consented to your sending me spam.
The spam had no unsubscribe link. When I called the phone number in the email, they said they could not stop the spam. I had to block it in my email application.
This is seriously disrespectful.

I don't appreciate the spam from your Portuguese branch, SIVA - SOCIEDADE DE IMPORTAÇÃO DE VEÍCULOS AUTOMÓVEIS, S.A.

I like the products, but product registration doesn't work properly, which is why I am not giving 5 stars.
The first product registration worked, but once I had registered it and uploaded the invoice, the registration page didn't indicate that an invoice had been uploaded.
I also had to clear the cookies to make the site work again after the first product registration.
When I tried to register the second product, a spice grinder, the registration screen did not recognise the product number. I had to contact support, which told me to use the SKU number, which worked.
They took over a week to answer.
However, after this second product registration, I cannot see any registered products at all. The link to view the registration history does nothing. Support just told me to wait 48-72 hours, as if they were still using 1970s computer technology or had to send everything to Germany on paper for manual registration.
Clearly the web people at Braun have no idea what they are doing.

I like the products, but the product registration is a complete mess, which is why I don't give 5 stars.
An inlay said I could get an additional year of warranty by registering the product.
The link simply redirected to the home page. No registration button or information anywhere.
Customer service said I should register an account on Para Mim (for Portugal) and gave me another link for the product registration that didn't work either.
When I told them it was still not working, they referred me to Para Mim customer service, which finally gave me the correct link, which I forwarded to Oral-B's customer service for their information. It's somewhat strange that it's the consumers that have to inform Oral-B how their registration works, not the other way around.
Why does Oral-B make it so complicated? They give the impression that they have no idea what they are doing.

Fast delivery, good payment options and reasonable shipping costs to other EU countries. Perfect.

Two weeks ago, I requested a quote for domestic electricity for my small business by submitting their online form, since I could not find any rates on their website. It was confirmed by email, which said, 'We hope to send you an appropriate reply in the next few days.' No reply or quote was ever received. Poor service

I was about to sign up to Eni Plenitude via ComparaJá, having been told the rates were the same for companies, but when the draft contract was provided, the rates were much higher, which made the offer uncompetitive. It's just a 6.9 kVA installation in a flat for working at home, so no special business features are required. Eni Plenitude makes itself look greedy this way.

I've been buying my cat food from Zooplus.pt for 2½ years now without a problem. Prices are lower than in shops, and they have better choice and quality. Delivery is fast.

The last two years, I have regularly placed orders with Farmahome.pt. They have always been delivered quickly with no problem whatsoever. The products needed have always been in stock. Prices are lower than elsewhere, and delivery is free above a certain amount and very reasonable cost below.

Everything in order. Electric dehumidifier delivered one day before promised without any damage. Smooth ordering process with downloadable VAT invoice.