And… to add insult to injury, to add salt to the wound, they actually kept our hopes up the past few months by issuing biometric appointments and collecting EUR 6k+ in fees from us only to be rugged pulled again. Many of us were already considering backing out of this craziness but some of us kept a dose of positivity and decided to still go through hoping that the TC decision, change in president, etc. would somehow alter the proposed law a bit to our favor (fair transition provisions/periods). Clearly that did not happen.
Now those who have just paid the biometric fees, card issuance fees, etc. realize that you had just given away thousands of Euros to this very inconsiderate government. Many of us are also having a hard time withdrawing from closed-ended funds, so we are stuck with bad investments and bad/mediocre returns. I really hope some well-known media outlets document this very unfair practices (scam) from the government.
In normal/traditional debts markets, when a country or government default or fail to deliver on promises to investors/lenders, there are dire consequences (credit rating hit, etc). In short, one does not want to f*ck up their investors/lenders. In this case, what is our last resort when the government broke its promise? Nothing. The next time the Portuguese government encounters a financial crisis and in need of investments/funds from foreign private individuals, may we, the investors, remember how we were short-changed by them. Never again!