Awkward visit from the desentupidora today. I.e., unstopper of drains. I arranged for this by phone. They gave me an idea of how their charges work - first hour, extra time past that - and indicated someone would be there this afternoon. He showed up earlier than expected, and worked longer than expected due to various peculiarities of the house.
Then, his stuff all packed up, he says, well, you can pay me here, or pay the office and pay like €100 more for the IVA tax.
I have bought some things from individuals and didn't pay IVA, but wasn't expecting this and didn't really like the sound of it. Anyway, who's got €420 cash on hand? I pay for almost everything with cash, but not the big stuff. So I told him I'd just as soon pay the office.
He has to call up the boss. All this has been in Portuguese, and the boss speaks English. Sort of. The boss calls me, and says if I want, I can pay "our friend" cash and save €100.
I try to explain, more or less by way of an excuse, that I don't have this amount of money laying around on hand, but unfortunate communication problem ensues - he apparently thinks I'm telling him I don't have the kind of money to pay for his services. (As far as I can tell, there is no unambiguous translation for "cash".)
I think we got this straightened out, the payment has been transferred from my bank account, and we parted on good terms, but next time, will look to someone else. Now I have to engage the services of a "pedreiro", which I think may be a very ambiguous category, to break up the finished basement and fix a broken pipe that was discovered in the process, but I expect this will follow a more formal process and there won't be any cash payments under the table.
I never did really find out what they were thinking, though. Would my Portuguese neighbors have gone into the house and come out with €420 in small bills? Would they scoot over together to the nearest Multibanco, and get the amount in a few of the €150 maximum withdrawals? I can send money to individuals from my bank account, but no one mentioned that as an option, possibly a little too conspicuous if you're dodging the tax man.
The language barrier was a minor but real problem. The guy was a fairly clear speaker, considering, but not much like someone raised in our central area, where I dare say the Portuguese is significantly easier to understand. Anyway he was not the easiest. There were a few times I just couldn't get what he was trying to tell me, though happily I don't think I missed anything important. They knew when they dispatched him that I was not a native speaker. The boss is probably the only one there with any English, and his is really none too good. Maybe if you have little or no ability to communicate verbally, they can still get the job done, though it would take longer and be more haphazard.
Also ... not to make a blog out of this, but ... the contact form on their web page? Don't expect anyone to ever look at that. Try it sometime, and also put your request in a bottle and throwing it in the Atlantic, and see which yields more reliable results.
