Before over reacting, it begs the question as to whether the ballhead has a secondary dampening mechanism to give finer control over the primary locking mechanism!!
(OK, did a seach .. so scratch the previous question)
What I think is the ballhead looks like a Manfrotto 486RC2 knock off/copy. Does it have the one locking mechanism lever to control both the ball and the panning?
if so, can you pull this locking lever out to adjust the relative position of it. That is, without trying to unlock the ball/panning, you can usually pull the lever outwards under pressure of a return spring and set the 'pointing position' of the lever to another position. That is, if the locking lever
stops in the upwards direction, and is bothersome in some way, you can use this feature to reset where the locked position of the lever rests .. for example facing downwards.
if this is the case, then has the lever position return spring failed in some way and not allowing you to turn the actual screw that controls the ballhead properly.
Alternatively have the teeth that mesh between lever and screw broken?