The Palm Pre return rate wrangling continues unabated, with RBC analyst Mike Abramsky the latest to step into the fray.  After initial return estimates of around 40-percent returns sent Palm’s stock price into a tumble, followed by reassurance that, in fact, such figures were possibly based on bad data, Abramsky’s team now claim that returns are more likely between 2 and 3-percent.

That’s significantly lower than the early estimates, and reassuring news for Palm shareholders.  Abramsky and his team monitored around 24 Sprint stores to gather their data, concluding in a report this week that Palm Pre sales have “sustained momentum”.

They also suggest that Sprint has sold around 350,000 Pre devices in the seven weeks since it launched.  All well and good, until you remember that back on June 30th Equity Research analyst Edward Snyder tipped Pre sales figures to that point at 300,000.  Either Sprint has only sold 50,000 Pre smartphones in July, or someone’s guesses were way off base.  Palm’s stock value had risen 400-percent for the year by the end of June, but dipped 15-percent this month on the basis of the poor returns rate estimates.