Travel Agencies, Airlines, Hyper and Supermarkets, Home Delivery and Health are the five sectors that lead the table of complaints from Portuguese consumers. Complaints about price speculation and online scams are also beginning to take shape.

The Complaint Portal is aware of the situation and will reinforce digital literacy alerts to protect consumers. The largest social network of consumers in the country, now also makes available, free of charge, on its platform, an area for companies to be able to communicate directly with consumers.

According to the Portal da Queixa team's analysis, travel agencies (402) and airlines (137) continue to be the target of the largest number of complaints regarding flight cancellations and the respective refund. Contact difficulties are also reported in large quantities by the consumer.

With the evolution of the pandemic and the change in consumer behaviours - a consequence of social isolation and the decreed State of Emergency -, problems and complaints began to extend to other areas: Hyper and supermarkets (75), Home Delivery ( 51), Healthcare (49), Accommodation Booking Sites (39), Telecommunications Operators (39), Public Transport (30) and Electronic Commerce (30).

According to Pedro Lourenço, CEO of Portal da Queixa, “as there is a behavioural change in consumption, by the Portuguese, due to the quarantine - which was reflected in the increase in purchases over the internet -, namely of essential consumer goods and others , home delivery companies recorded an abrupt rise in complaints, most of them regarding delivery difficulties or wrong orders. Supermarkets also continue to record a high number of complaints regarding the difficulty of accessing the sites to make the purchase and delivery, respectively. An abnormal volume of complaints addressed to pharmacies and healthcare facilities was also notorious, considering the sale of disinfectant products at exorbitant prices.”