BlackBerry Asks Regulators to Probe ‘False’ Returns
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BlackBerry, the Canadian smartphone maker, said it will ask securities regulators to investigate a report that its new phones have high return rates, arguing that the “false” information may have been released in a deliberate attempt to manipulate its stock price.
Detwiler Fenton & Co., a financial-services firm in Boston, said yesterday that U.S. retailers were seeing a significant increase in customers returning their Z10s because they found the interface unintuitive. “In several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before,” Detwiler Fenton said. The report contributed to a 7.8 percent plunge in BlackBerry shares yesterday, marking the stock’s worst one-day drop in almost two months.