Accidently buying the wrong mobile phone contract - Germany

Hi mates,

Let me explain my problem.

When I came to a Vodafone shop (in Karlsplatz) to make a contract, I just said that I want 1 contract for student with cheap monthy price. Then, the guy gave me some papers to sign, and I did it without any notice since I can't read German.

Then, I realized that I have up to 3 contracts with expensive Business tariff .

I wanna cencel at least one of the three, but they said it's impossible. I came again to the shop not less than 5 times and they're always rude! I called the customer service several times more and they just couldn't help.

I'm really angry and disappointed now.

So, please have an idea!

Thanks a lot

I hope you have legal protection insurance?

You wanted a basic contract. You ended up with 3 business tariff contracts. I'm sorry mate but you deserve it. Not being able to read German has nothing to do with it. I presume you spoke to someone in the shop to arrange this. So for starters the bloke in the shop is an idiot of gargantuan proportions. If these contracts are not what you intended to sign then you can get them changed and/or cancelled. You say you've been back to the shop 5 times. What have you been doing on these visits, standing in a corner waiting to be noticed. If what you say is actually what happened then you go in there tomorrow morning and demand to get the problem sorted. You state that you do not speak German, that somehow the person who gave you the forms was an idiot and that you are not leaving the desk until they sort out the problem. Either get tough and deal with the issue or keep your 3 contracts and continue to whine about it. This is not something that should be dragging out.

hmmm well technically the contracts are legally binding even though u didn't understand what you were signing. if it were that easy to get out of contracts just because you didn't understand them, any one of us could prolly use that same excuse to get outta contracts we don't want to be in anymore. so yea, you prolly shouldn't sign sumfin you don't understand..
but maybe they'll be nice and give u a break.. good luck

Do you have any german speaking friends (ideally Germans of course) who could go to the store with you? Then you could be sure of getting your problem across, and are (unfortunately) likely to be treated with more respect and taken more seriously?

hmm whereas keydeck is harsh in his comments, i agree that you should make one almighty bloody stink in the shop. start raising your voice and shouting, demand to see the manager, and do all of this where there are other potential customers and they should take you more seriously. sometimes i think it's the only way here. don't leave the shop until they have agreed to change it.

To me, all this seems so strange it's unlikely even to be true. What makes you think you have "up to 3" expensive business contracts? Did you get 3 phones to go along with them? Possibly you got a contract other than you expected, but I doubt you received more than one.

I suggest you have someone explain your contract(s) properly to you, and if you are not happy with it you should simply change it: I have changed my contract before (E-Plus), simply by calling Customer Service. Should you really have more than one contract, it should be quite easy to cancel superfluous ones b/c otherwise it'd be obvious the Vodafone salesman acted by fraudulent means, in which case the Law would take care of the matter.

First, thank you everyone for your replies.

Keydeck, yes I wasn't standing in the corner, of course. I raised my voice nearly to maximal level, in fact. They suggested calling the Customer service, the Customer sevice tolded me come to the shop . When it got more and more tense, they showed my signatures and they won the battle. What could I do next, Keydeck? I am, at least, politer than that German not throwing the mobile phone on his face.

Believe or not, I found an ally who have same problem with the same man. So, to whom it concerns, please be careful with one of the men (others are okay) over there. Let me remind those: Vodafone shop in Karlsplatz, opposite Santurn, a tricky man!

I talked to Customer service and we finally agreed on this solution: convert all my Business-Actice contracts to Vodafone Sun, then wait for 2 years.

All in all, thank you very much again.

Best regards.

In the famous words of Molder and Scully , "Trust No-one". Never ever ever sign something if you don't understand it.

I wouldn't sign a contract I didn't understand.

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought I'd heard some case law that if you didn't understand the contract you were signing, it couldn't be enforced.

I left Germany last week, and when I tried to close my vodaphone contract, the customer agents in the vodaphone shops insisted that I write to vodaphone customer service (the address on the top left of my monthly bills) to find out outcome.

After contacting vodaphone by telephone, they told me the same thing (to write to them).

If I left Germany (and the European Union for that matter), is it possible to return the phone/charger/original_box and end the contract? Many people have told me that I can do this regardless of the remaining duration of my contract. Apparently it is some kind of cellphone contract rule in Germany.

Can anyone confirm this? Otherwise I am stuck paying 12 Euros/month for the next 14 months!

Hi Vuvanthanh

Sorry to hear the mess you got yourself into, real bummer.

The rest of us on the board would never get ourselves in such a situation because we are perfect.

However, at one flippant point in my life, I messed up to.

I took a contract with E-Plus, within a month or two I was out of Germany and the stop order I set up never went through to E-Plus. Two months later they cut me off, I arrived back to be confuted with a disabled phone. I was really pissed, so I went into E-Plus to investigate. Their answer was that I had been disbarred from E-Plus for an eternity (don’t really know how
Long). They said pay up what I owe them and we go our different ways, clearly there was no credit blacklisting etc since I paid everything, it was just 60 days late.

So I walked across the street to O² Having been legally and honourably released from my contract with E-Plus to sign a new contact all within 30 min. The best thing of all is that E-Plus diden´t even want the phone back that they gave me for 1 Euro.

Ye Haa

Customs can win in Germany, its just that its as rare as a four leaf clover.

Best of luck, Don’t know if it will work with VV

The rules are pretty simple and it's nothing to do wiwth being perfect or whatever. You sign a contract with a phone company then you have agreed to abide by the rules of that company. If the contract was not what you intended then you can get it changed. Vuvanthanh somehow signed up for 3 contracts. This was clearly silly and clearly unintentional. You stand in the shop and you get it fixed. There is no middle ground, there is no debating the issue, you just get it done. If you are leaving the country then you give the phone company a copy of the document that you get from the KVR and the contract will be cancelled. It's not a maybe situation. You sign up for 2 years or whatever but if you are leaving the country then the contract will be cancelled, it's a fact and it applies to all mobile operators.

Surely there must be some recourse in cases where the salesman gives you a false impression about the nature of the document you're signing? Couldn't you plead non est factum or something?

Of course there is but I suspect that the problem in Vuvanthanh's case is allowing himself to be intimidated by the fact that he doesn't speak German and the shop guys are not being overly helpful. He needs to get tougher and get it solved.