Sprint and Verizon together have denied claims that problems with the BlackBerry Tour's trackball are resulting in extraordinarily high return rates. Both now admit that the trackball has been an issue but said that only a "small" number of early Tours were affected by the problem. Verizon indicated also that its return rate for the Tour has actually been lower than average and that it remains as committed to selling the newer BlackBerry Tour as before.

The news partly addresses concerns that the Tour's trackball had been intrinsically flawed and too prone to clogging, rendering the input near-useless in a relatively short span of time. Complaints have persisted until the present day on enthusiast forums, but it's unknown how widespread any sustained problem might be.

Worries over a possible defect were first sparked by a TownHall Investment Research report that cited unnamed sources hearing of wide-scale returns.