Pensao Rosinha Art Gallery House

I was asked to pay a refundable deposit of 500 euros to reserve my room in one of the shared apartments in Pensao Rosinha. My two-month stay was okay - a bit noisy, as a lot of the rooms are connected by doors and there are a lot of comings and goings in the building generally - but I was on friendly terms with the owners and felt it was a decent place on the whole. The cleaners were brilliant and so I left them a present. However, over a month on, my deposit has still not been refunded. Messages to the email address used for daily communications about the business have been ignored, as has a phone message. No one answers the two phone numbers given to residents and Airbnb guests. It is impossible to avoid drawing the conclusion that I've been scammed. Five hundred euros is not a small sum to lose, so I'll be pursuing the matter through various channels in the Portuguese system. But the worst thing is how this experience has sullied my perception of Portugal. I know the country well enough to understand that attempting to keep deposits is fairly common, but I did not expect this behaviour from Camila and Paulo.