# SEF Appointment



## cruizes

I was approved for my residency so now am tying to set up an appointment with SEF to finalize everything. I have tried the phone numbers 808 prefix as well as the website to set up an appointment and neither work. Am I doing something wrong?


----------



## travelling-man

Try emailing them


----------



## cruizes

Thanks. I tried emailing. I am very optimistic. Keeping my fingers crossed &#55358;&#56606;


----------



## JohnBoy

You are not the first to suffer this problem. Take a look at this previous thread that might provide some useful information:

https://goo.gl/NK2jPq

Good luck!


----------



## cruizes

travelling-man said:


> Try emailing them


As mentioned I was optimistic but ended up empty handed. They won’t budge to help me. They insist that the only way to make an appointment is either the telephone number (doesnt work from US) or the website (doesnt work from US). I have lived between Mexico and Argentina for about 10 years so actually this doesn’t surprise me. I’m going to try to find someone that would make the call for us within Portugal.


----------



## Myriam20

cruizes said:


> I was approved for my residency so now am tying to set up an appointment with SEF to finalize everything. I have tried the phone numbers 808 prefix as well as the website to set up an appointment and neither work. Am I doing something wrong?


I hope that by now you have solved this problem. If you are in Portugal now, would you be willing to make the call to get the appointment for me ? If the forum rules allow it, I am willing to pay a generous fee to anybody making the call and getting the appointment for me on my behalf.
I am currently abroard and cannot travel to Portugal at short notice.
Do you know which information is required to make the call to schedule the appointmment?

Thanks


----------



## travelling-man

Myriam20 said:


> I hope that by now you have solved this problem. If you are in Portugal now, would you be willing to make the call to get the appointment for me ? If the forum rules allow it, I am willing to pay a generous fee to anybody making the call and getting the appointment for me on my behalf.
> I am currently abroard and cannot travel to Portugal at short notice.
> Do you know which information is required to make the call to schedule the appointmment?
> 
> Thanks


Forget calling them because they don't know how to answer the phone....... You need to look on sef.pt, locate your nearest office & email them for an appointment & they'll probably not give you that until you're actually in Portugal.


----------



## Myriam20

Thanks for your reply. However, I emailed SEF already and they replied that I must call them to get an appointment. There is no other way as they do not give initial appointments via email. The number to call for appointments is not reachable from outside Portugal. This I why I need the kind help of somebody who is in Portugal and who can call that number on my behalf.


----------



## Ukkram

You have not told us of the town/city SEF office you are having hassles with. My SEF office in Viana told me to just pop in whenever. I did so on many occasions.


----------



## Myriam20

It is the office in Lisbon. I managed to call them from abroad (their number works from abroard) but they replied that I can schedule an appointment only through the appointment hotline number, which unfortunately cannot be reached from abroad. That is why I need somebody's kind assistance to call on my behalf (unless I travel already to Portugal, which I cannot)


----------



## Ukkram

I smell a con here. First *cruizes* posts his dilemma by not getting through to SEF by phone from the US.

Then *Myriam20* answers with the same problem some months later.

She then offers to pay someone to phone SEF on her behalf. 

*bonitis* then replies in strong Nigerian wording that he will do so but needs info via PM. Probably banking info.

Am I paranoid in seeing a scam unfolding here? You have 3 months to get a SEF appointment after arrival so why the haste?


----------



## JohnBoy

Ukkram said:


> I smell a con here. First *cruizes* posts his dilemma by not getting through to SEF by phone from the US.
> 
> Then *Myriam20* answers with the same problem some months later.
> 
> She then offers to pay someone to phone SEF on her behalf.
> 
> *bonitis* then replies in strong Nigerian wording that he will do so but needs info via PM. Probably banking info.
> 
> Am I paranoid in seeing a scam unfolding here? You have 3 months to get a SEF appointment after arrival so why the haste?


Not to mention of course that it was a very strange first post by Bonitist. Most people would come here to say hi or ask for advice. Be careful Cruizes.


----------



## siobhanwf

JohnBoy said:


> Not to mention of course that it was a very strange first post by Bonitist. Most people would come here to say hi or ask for advice. Be careful Cruizes.


Bonitist is now banned Johnboy


----------



## advolex

*Appointments with the SEF*



Myriam20 said:


> It is the office in Lisbon. I managed to call them from abroad (their number works from abroard) but they replied that I can schedule an appointment only through the appointment hotline number, which unfortunately cannot be reached from abroad. That is why I need somebody's kind assistance to call on my behalf (unless I travel already to Portugal, which I cannot)


In January, I saw on the SEF site that it’s now a legal requirement to book one’s SEF appointments online, at sef.pt, which I hope you have done by now. If you didn’t manage to get your appointment by a phone call before the end of 2018, that is. - I managed to schedule my appointment online, from a PT IP address, after some tinkering with my browsers privacy settings. You must register your NIF, and your email address and telephone number.


----------



## Janina k

Hello

After three emails i gave up like most Portuguese they don't reply to email's. However they do answer the phone or at least they answered ours. 

Fred


----------



## jkmhawk

i dont know if anyone has any advice. 

i submitted my manifestação de interessa (feb 2019) and it is accepted (may 2019), but i cannot schedule the appointment (via sapa) since may. my gf and i are checking several times a day at the site, but nothing is ever available. my work called one location directly and the person who answered suggested emailing as they couldnt do anything over the phone. i have tried emailing the locations directly, and even had a response from one email, but it was to no avail. We have a lawyer helping, but we cannot get the appointment. calls to the main sef loacation get people who just say we have to use the site. a brazilian coworker had an appointment set up through the embassy in brazil, so i tried to contact the embassy in the us by email, but had no response. 

i dont know what else to do. apparently we wont be able to get married in portugal on short notice either, according to one post here (though in neither example was one of the people portuguese).


----------



## jkmhawk

*Sapa*

trying to get an appointment. i submitted the manifestação de interessa in february 2019, it was accepted in may 2019, and since then we have been trying to set up the appointment on the SAPA portal. my GF and I are checking several times a day since may but there are never appointments available. my work has called one of the locations that have meetings directly, and they said that i should email them. emailing them has not gotten a response. we call the main sef number and they just say that we need to keep trying. has anyone managed a meeting through the SAPA portal?


----------



## jkmhawk

in the end, we managed to get an appointment in march through the portal.


----------

