Breaking a T-Com mobile phone contract

Does anyone have any ideas how to get out of a cell phone contract with T-Com? I will probably be leaving Germany FOREVER next month due to my father being sick with cancer. I have a cell phone contract for another 14 months. Therefore I would have to pay the rest of it, 392 euros!!!

Is it easy to find someone to take my contract over? (the angel speaking)
What happens if I cancel, then my bank account is closed, and they can't take the money from me? (the devil speaking)

Thanks for your opinion. Cheers!

Unless things have changed recently it shouldn't be a problem to speak to them about it. Have a look here and look at the comments about T-Com in the thread.

You will probably have to pay the minimum monthly charge till the end of your contract, and the service provider will deduct that amount from your bank account on the last day of your contract.

Other service providers, like cable, will exempt you from this if you are moving out of the country, but not mobile service providers. That's been our experience, anyway.

But if I don't have a bank account open, what happens?

This is an "ausserordentlicher Kündigung aus wichtigen Grund", which is often specified in the original contract, and where not is covered in the German constitution (Bürgerliche Gesetzbuch or BGB) in particular §314. This covers situations where a contract is no longer enforceable, e.g. due to death, but in your case as you have to move (unexpectedly, I presume) to a location where the contract would be useless. How hard you have to fight for this right is a moot point, and it may be that the phone company may be in their right to recover some or all of the unpaid contract, or have you return any benefits (such as a free phone) you received. Returning the phone would be fair, having to pay 100% of all outstanding payments would not. Simply not paying (or closing your bank account so they cannot collect payments) would break the contract and bring you liable for action to recover the missing payments and potential substantial costs resulting in doing so. They most likely would chase you abroad (they would pass the debt to collector whose business is to chase you to the ends of the earth), and you may even be liable for subsequent detention were you to re-enter Germany following confirmation of default in the courts.

It should be easily possible to transfer the unused portion of the contract to another person with mutual agreement of all 3 parties and a small payment for the costs of contract transfer. If you know someone prepared to take over the contract this is by far the easiest and cheapest approach.

YL6 knows what he's talking about. We are moving out of country at the end of the month and have had no trouble with cancelling other service contracts entirely.

I think the sticking point for the mobile phone companies is that you get a better deal from them depending on the length of service you sign up for. If you sign up for a 2-year contract and then only use 3 months, you would have had to pay a much higher monthly rate if you said up front you wanted 3 months (hypothetically.) That's why they get away with requiring you to pay the minimum monthly charge when you end the contract early.

I called T-com and tried to use the "talked to my lawyer and this contract can't be enforced if I leave the country," but it didn't work...
However, they did change my monthly payment to the lowest possible price- 9,95/ month. This alone will save me 200 euros over the next 16 months! Plus, I took my handy to a second handy shop and got 100 euros for it... therefore to break my contract I'll end up paying only 80 euros! Fair enough... and much better than taking the chance that a collection agency will find me in Canada!

Hope this info can help someone else in the future.

This is not about breaking a T-com contract but about breaking an O2 contract. A friend of mine is trying to break hers (it was a 2 year contract) because she is moving back to the States and they said NO. She had a co-worker call up O2 and the co-worker sweet-talked them into breaking her contract. Apparently, O2 is no longer allowing people to break their contract just because they are moving out of the country because too many people are using this reason to break their contracts.

I think they should only break it if they have proof of the move (ie, cancelled work permits, letter from company that they have been transferred, etc) but, then again, people are tech savvy these days and all this stuff can be 'created'.