Zulu15

Hi, could you advise, once IMT send you a receipt , with all your details , but not having a photograph or their signature (say's valid until 14-08-2021)by email,are you supposed to send the receipt back by email , signed , or just hold onto this until they contact you. Sorry unable to upload a copy of my receipt.
Any advise , would be appreciated
Thankyou

Abdc21

Hi Zulu15,
this depends on what stage you are at in the process. Is this for your temporary licence, following submission of your GB licence? If yes , from recollection, then they will also be asking where you want to get your biometrics taken. Apart from that I don’t remember ever needing to send a receipt back to them. Hope this makes sense.

Zulu15

Hi ABDC21,
Yes this is the receipt after I submitted my UK Driving license .
Your advice much appreciated , was over thinking things I think, but just wanted to be sure .
It's taken me 5 months and over 17 emails , when the request came through they gave me 10 days (9 actually after payment) to submit and they require the original confirmation from DVLA .
So for anyone starting the application , ensure you have the original DVLA confirmation in your hands ready.
Thanks for your help , much appreciated

campos

Sorry to revive this thread ...

On the issue of contacting the IMT by 'phone- has anyone : a) ever spoken to someone before the queue times out? and, if so, b) spoken to anyone in English.

suiko

The IMT office in Faro never answer the phone, I don't think.

They are also extremely unwilling to speak English and even unwilling to repeat what they said in Portuguese. The only time, in fact, I have experienced quite such an attitude. I was thoroughly polite and as always only spoke Portuguese, and they rolled their eyes extravagently and told me that if I was living in Portugal I should speak Portuguese well enough not to need anything repeating. Hope you have better luck!

campos

Yes, the kind of attitudes I can imagine from them
I called the national number 210488488. I chose option 3, as I think she mentioned foreigners or foreign licences. But possibly not!
My UK licence was sent somewhere up north IIRC.

BillBullock

My wife had the same experience in the Faro office and she left the office crying. They are very, very rude even if you try your best Portuguese. I complained in writing to the Lisbon head office and, within a few weeks, her Portuguese license arrived in the post, 11 months after application. Needless to say, there was no apology for the rudeness or the unnecessary delay in exchanging the license. .

m2m2012

Someone needs to go in there with a hidden camera to record this; then put it on social media.

santaanita

then i am afraid they will be arrested as that would be iilegal in portugal.

Sunseeker1st

I have never gone to Faro myself nor my husband as we have always used an agency. However, our friends have done their renewals on their own several times (we are all over 70) and say they have never had a problem. They do not speak Portuguese and they both renewed their licences earlier this year. Luck of the draw?

The agency did my husband's earlier this month and he got the paper receipt back. Last year mine was due and I got the paper but my plastic card arrived perhaps a month later.

wellinever

Typical attitude....what are they gonna do when the EU decides on a single language to be used (or is that too much?), cause it wont be Portuguese

Geronimal

I’m sure I read a press communication from the EU that stated French will become the approved standard language for the EU and not English as it had been. Thank heavens it won’t be Portuguese.

wellinever

But if they had half a brain they would choose English

m2m2012

You've come across this behaviour before?

I've spent a lot of time in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and I cannot remember locals expecting foreigners to speak Bulgarian, Hungarian or Greek. Maybe they might get a bit frustrated but I cannot imagine anyone being nasty about it.

What explains this ill will in Portugal?

BillBullock

I think it is just the disgruntled staff in the Faro office of IMT. For some reason, they developed a huge backlog of applications for the exchange of UK licenses. Many people have been waiting more than a year and still do not have their plastic license. We waited 9 and 11 months for ours. Meantime we were overtaken by people applying online in late 2020. Inside information, which I cannot follow up because it would affect the employee, stated that there were boxes of applications sitting in a cupboard which were being ignored whilst new applications were being dealt with. I complained to the Lisbon office and eventually I received mine but I had to do it again when my wife's license was still not delivered 2 months' later. I put the problem down to lack of effective management and/or some sort of staff problems in the Faro office.