Hi there,
In the summer of 2025, after having bought our house in Ourense, we were forced to make a practical decision: changing cars.
The back-and-forth trips from Porto, almost every weekend, added up to about four hours on the road. The car we had bought in 2023, designed for city driving, had become too small and, above all, poorly suited for long and frequent journeys.
This time we wanted to do things right from the start. To avoid scams and complications — something that already forms part of the mental landscape when you live in Portugal — we decided to buy the new car in Spain. Once we had it, we put up for sale the car we were using in Porto.
From the beginning we were clear about one thing: we did not want to sell it to a buy-and-sell dealership. We knew they would offer us less than half of its real value. So, we chose to sell it between private individuals and published it on OLX, the Portuguese equivalent of Wallapop.
OLX and the illusion of free listings
This is where the first obstacle appeared. OLX allows you to publish free ads for a very limited time. Once that period ends, the ad is automatically taken down and the only option to show it again is to pay.
There is no real way to “start over” with a free listing.
We exhausted this option by first using Diego’s account and then mine. By the end of 2025, there was no possibility left to keep advertising the car on this platform.
Absurd haggling and chronic distrust
On top of that came the usual: people who, faced with a car listed at 4,500 or 4,000 euros, would directly offer 2,000 or less. People who do not even filter by price and try to force impossible discounts, something I had already experienced in Spain as well.
But what struck me most was the constant fear of being scammed. A fear so deeply internalized that it blocks any normal transaction.
They asked basic questions, distrusted the documentation, the annual inspections, the official paperwork. Even when we explained that the car had up-to-date servicing and all documents in order, the answer was: “I don’t trust papers.”
In Portugal, it is common to manipulate mileage, disguise cars, and sell real traps on wheels. That has created a climate in which no one trusts anyone. Neither selling nor buying a used car seems possible without assuming that someone is going to lose.
I came to understand that my experience was not an exception: the Portuguese themselves live permanently at the mercy of scammers, and that reality has destroyed basic trust between private individuals.
When exhaustion becomes mental
Some questions bordered on the surreal. We were even asked whether the car had power steering, as if we were selling a vehicle from the 1970s. It felt as though many people had not the slightest idea how modern cars work, or they asked just for the sake of asking, looking for any excuse to distrust.
After months like this, I was mentally exhausted.
The difference trust makes
That was when we turned to a Portuguese friend Diego met through cycling. We asked for help because the situation had become absurd.
He suggested two options: a trusted dealership or that his daughter-in-law would buy it. For us, that second option was an immediate relief.
They were people we trusted, people we knew. The son of this friend is also the one who looks after our dog when we travel.
We had bought the vehicle for more than 6,000 euros in 2023 — an outrageous price, but common in Portugal. We started selling it for 4,500, then 4,000, and we were already thinking of lowering it to 3,500. In the end, we left it at that price and discounted 150 euros more to cover the change of ownership and small paperwork.
They also took it with a full tank. An unthinkable detail at a dealership or in an ordinary sale.
A happy ending (something so rare in Portugal)
And that is how this story ended. Without lawyers. Without scams. Without problems. Without psychological wear.
A simple sale, between people, in a country where almost everything usually ends badly.
After six months with the car sitting idle and when we had already lost hope of selling it at a reasonable price, this outcome arrived almost like a Christmas gift.
It was a true win-win: they gained independence and a good deal, and we closed a chapter without conflict.
A happy ending. Something so simple and so uncommon in Portugal.
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