JPMorgan canceled a question-and-answer session on Twitter Wednesday after receiving a barrage of critical questions skewering the multinational banking company for legal problems, foreclosure practices, and other ethical transgressions.
Starting at least since last week, JPMorgan, the investment and services portion of financial behemoth JPMorgan Chase & Co, asked followers and others on Twitter to send questions about the bank’s operations for veteran investment banker and company vice chairman Jimmy Lee using the hashtag #AskJPM ahead of the planned Thursday session.
Few had used the hashtag until Wednesday afternoon, after JPMorgan sent a follow-up tweet on Tuesday promoting the event.
After the reminder tweet, the floodgates opened. Questions - or, often, heckling - ranged from highly critical of the bank’s practices to complete non sequiturs. Company CEO Jamie Dimon was a particularly popular target among the taunters. Twitter users also criticized the bank’s billions of dollars of fines to mortgage regulators and its connection to low quality mortgage securities tied to the 2008 financial crisis.
Among the “questions” posed to JPMorgan:
JPMorgan cut its losses and canceled the Thursday Q&A on Wednesday evening.
The tweet barrage inspired a dramatic reading of some of the tweets by actor Stacy Keach.
Following the cancellation, David Dayen, a longtime progressive blogger, announced he would - tongue in cheek - answer #AskJPM questions in place of JPMorgan.
