Mohit Goel, director of Freedom 251 maker Ringing Bells detained

Freedom 251, the cheapest smartphone promised to be launched early last year by Ringing Bells is back in the news. Mohit Goel, the director of the company has been detained by the Ghaziabad police on allegations of fraud.

Goel has been detained as the owner of Ayam Enterprises in Ghaziabad filed a FIR alleging that Ringing Bells defrauded the former of Rs. 16 lakh. The FIR states that the company paid Rs. 30 lakh to Ringing Bells via RTGS on various occasions, but received products worth just Rs. 13 lakh. After follow-up, they could get products and money for Rs. 14 lakh.

Ringing Bells is not new to controversies. Ever since its debut, the company has been falling into a lot of controversies. Once the Freedom 251 was launched, the company was accused of non-payment of dues as well as abrupt termination of the contract by Cyfuture, a call center service provider. Adcom wanted to subject Ringing Bells to legal action as the company distributed Adcom handsets to the media attendees instead of the Freedom 251.

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As per Ringing Bells, around 30,000 customers booked the Freedom 251 among the 7 crore people who had registered for it. It remains unclear if the company was ever successful in shipping the phones to the customers who had purchased the same. In addition to the Freedom 251, the company also announced four feature phones, two smartphones, three power banks, and a 31.5-inch HD TV in the last year.