Ringing Bells the Noida start up company who had announced the worlds cheapest smartphone is still in the news. Earlier this week the company had promised to refund the money of the customers from the first phase of its booking and will be offering the smartphone with cash on delivery.
Ringing Bells, the company who had announced launching the world’s cheapest smartphone, is being monitored by the government. Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that action will be taken against the company if they fail to deliver the Freedom 251 handset. He added, “Our Ministry enquired into how prepared they (Ringing Bells) are, whether they can provide a phone for Rs 251 or not. Whether they have the BIS certificate or not, we have spoken to them.”
Ringing Bells had used Adcom's smartphone during its release. The product came with Adcom branding, which was hidden by a whitener and overwritten with “Freedom 251”. And Adcom is denying that fact that it is selling or even manufacturing the phone for Ringing Bells. Ringing Bells President Ashok Chaddha clarified that it "wanted to show a sample or prototype of what the handsets will look like. This is not the final piece". "In view of the shortage of time and given that these were to serve only as prototypes to a limited list of persons, we went ahead. We would clearly mention that the final Freedom 251 manufactured/assembled in India would be to identical specs - i.e. no change," he added.
Now according to an emailed statement to Gadgets 360, Sanjeev Bhatia, Founder & Chairman, Advantage Computers (Adcom), said the company had sold the handsets to Ringing Bells at Rs. 3,600 per handset, and did not know about the Noida-based company's plans to resell the devices.
Adcom on Friday announced it may consider legal action against Ringing Bells. "We are deeply grieved by this incident where our mobile phone has been presented to masses for Rs.251, and therefore, would not hesitate from taking any legal actions against the company, in case the entire fiasco impacts Adcom's brand name or subsequently we face any other kind of losses," Bhatia said in a statement on Friday.
"Yes, it is true that although we sold the handsets to Ringing Bells earlier, like we sell Adcom mobiles to lakhs of users, we were absolutely unaware of the reselling plans of the company in question," he added.
"Furthermore, we still haven't been able to evaluate their pricing policy as we sold the handsets at Rs.3,600 per unit (to Ringing Bells)," Bhatia said.
