Ringing Bells starts refunding money to customers

NOIDA: Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, the company which launched the Rs251 worth smartphone Freedom 251, today in a late night call told TOI that all the 77 lakh rupees collected by it so far through payment gateways will be refunded to the 30,000 people who have paid up for the phone online so far via online payment gateways.

Mohit Goel,owner of the company in a call said that the company will bear the service charge on behalf of the buyers and refund Rs251 each to all those who have booked the phone. “We have written to the payment gateway companies and the money should reach the buyers between Monday to Wednesday,” Goel said.

Goel further added that wheh the phone does get made, it would be delivered to all those who have booked it on a cash on delivery basis.

“Hopefully, we will be able to deliver the phone from April end onwards,” he said.

The Rs251 phone which became an overnight hit in the country ran into a string of controversies as after the launch of the phone. TOI revealed in its reports how the company had started started pre-booking orders without showing a model of the phone or even having production facilities for the same.

Previously Goel had confirmed that he had procured 25 lakh online bookings for the phone and was targeting 25 lakh offline or on ground bookings from people. Over seven crore people had registered for the phone, online, as well.

“We will refund all money and start the scheme from scratch” he claimed.