Bank has whale of a flop online

JPMORGAN Chase has become the latest company to cancel a questionand-answer session on Twitter after it prompted a tirade of verbal abuse from thousands of people on the site.

At least two-thirds of 80 000 tweets sent using the hashtag #AskJPM were negative, according to Topsy, a US-based social search company that analyses tweets.

One of JPMorgan’s senior bankers who worked on Twitter’s share sale, Jimmy Lee, had planned to take over the company’s Twitter page on Thursday in an online marketing event.

But on Wednesday afternoon, due to the scale of the abuse, the company scrapped the event, announcing: “Tomorrow’s Q&A is cancelled. Bad Idea. Back to the drawing board.”

The bank has been the subject of criticism since its $13-billion (about R132-billion) settlement for misselling mortgage-backed securities and its $6-billion “London Whale” trading losses. The latter was caused by a trader nicknamed London Whale because of his huge bets on the financial markets.

Abusive tweets included: “Quick! You’re in a room with no key, a chair, two paper clips, and a light bulb. How do you defraud investors?”

Another wrote: “What’s your favourite type of whale? #AskJPM”

The Wall Street bank is not the first to incur the wrath of Twitter users when attempting to hold an online question and answer session.

Last month, on the day when it announced price rises of 10%, British Gas’s #AskBG Twitter campaign was flooded with anger at rising prices, profits and executive pay.

One tweet read: “My office has a window where the sun comes in and makes the side of my head really hot. How much do I owe you?”

Social media analysts suggested the backlash was inevitable.

Debra Williamson of research firm E-Marketer told the Financial Times: “I think companies sometimes forget that social media belongs to the people. Consumers have control beyond their wildest expectations.

“Brands spend a lot of money to try to get something positive to go viral but all it takes is one misstep.”

JPMorgan has just over 9 000 Twitter followers. — © The Daily Telegraph, London