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Founder of India's $4 Smartphone Firm Arrested on Allegations of Fraud (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fraud-alert dept.

Remember the $4 smartphone from India? Yeah, things haven't really materialized. Reuters reports: The founder of an Indian tech firm that shot to prominence by offering a $4 smartphone has been arrested on allegations of fraud, after a handset dealer accused the company of not refunding him for an unfulfilled order, the police said. Mohit Goel, the founder of Ringing Bells, was arrested Thursday afternoon in Uttar Pradesh and will be produced in court later on Friday, said Rahul Srivastav, a police spokesman from the northern Indian state. Goel and his company made headlines last year with the "Freedom" smartphone, which was priced at 251 rupees ($3.77), attracting strong demand but also widespread scepticism and scrutiny from regulators even in price-conscious India, where cheap smartphones are big sellers. The founder was arrested after a dealer said he had paid 3 million Indian rupees for an order of handsets but had received only a fraction of the order. He further said some of the phones received were defective, according to the police.

25 comments

  1. lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    lol

  2. Wait, $3.77? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I could have a new phone every day!

    1. Re:Wait, $3.77? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Funny

      At that price, you could almost heat up your house with these in a wood stove. Real burner phones!

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    2. Re:Wait, $3.77? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh my god, the pollution!!!!

    3. Re:Wait, $3.77? by Maritz · · Score: 0

      No such thing as "pollution".

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    4. Re:Wait, $3.77? by Desler · · Score: 0

      Fake news! Fake news! Stop peddling Chinese conspiracies!

  3. No wonder by dmesg0 · · Score: 1

    $4 is less than even the BOM of an iPhone

    1. Re:No wonder by GuB-42 · · Score: 3, Informative

      $4 is just a token price. The government is expected to pay for the bill.
      It is less than the BOM of a Nokia 105 ($13.50), a dumb phone that retails for $20.

    2. Re:No wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $4 isn't the real cost, as the previous story on this noted "It is being heavily subsidized to make up for the benefits that it will bring to the people who could never afford a smartphone before." There is no way you could profitably make a $4 smartphone without some sort of subsidy, regardless of the fraud issue.

    3. Re:No wonder by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      There is no way you could profitably make a $4 smartphone without some sort of subsidy, regardless of the fraud issue.

      Unless you could lock the purchasers into a multiyear contract for usage in exchange for the cheap phone.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    4. Re:No wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WTF is a BOM? Google links me to cell phone bombs.

    5. Re:No wonder by windwalkr · · Score: 1

      "Bill of Materials" - the individual components necessary to make the product.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    6. Re:No wonder by Maritz · · Score: 1

      That's you on the no-fly list. Enjoy.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    7. Re:No wonder by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      In India? Lookup 'Judgement proof'.

      I was going to add that it didn't apply to all Indians, but the ones with money can buy judges, so it really does.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  4. Missed a y, claims honest typo. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Funny
    The founder of that company claimed that he was merely smart person and a phony dealer. He meant to register "Smartphony" as the brand name to hawk "Rs 251 Smartphony". Once you pay 251 rupees and get a brick you would realize the device was phony not phone. And the buyer will learn the lesson, become smart and not fall prey to such scams in the future.

    But the autocorrect changed it to smartphone and caused all this misunderstanding. He plans to sue to auto correct software vendor for defamation, slander and scurrilous calumnies.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Missed a y, claims honest typo. by Desler · · Score: 1

      Once all these charges are dealt with he should be more than qualified to be the next chairman of the Samsung chaebol.

  5. Re:This only happens in India by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And unsurprisingly, inconvenient truth gets modded down to -1.

  6. No Way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't believe it.

  7. Re:This only happens in India by Maritz · · Score: 2

    And what a *SURPRISE*, they both make Android phones.

    You sound smart. Not quite smart enough to realise that everyone makes Android phones, but smart nonetheless.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  8. Re:This only happens in India by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Didn't you mod yourself up? You new to this sockpuppet malarkey?

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  9. HUH!?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you can't sell a phone for less than the cost of the battery?

  10. He should emigrate. by Cyberpunk+Reality · · Score: 1

    Here in the US, that's just smart business practices. Heck, if he wasn't an immigrant, he would make a perfect president!

    --
    Rule 35 of the internet: "If it can be hacked, it will be". - Charles Stross
  11. GST News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Keep updated with GST News in India.