'What's it like working with Mexican drug cartels?' Banking giant JPMorgan cancels Twitter Q&A after thousands of abusive tweets



Firm had planned public relations stunt with senior executive Jimmy Lee

But it decided to cancel session after deluge of insults from angry users

One said: 'Is it true that, while you don't always spit on poor people, when you do, you have perfect aim?'

Another drew picture making reference to 'London whale' trading scandal

Bank faces $13bn for its role in credit crunch that caused global slump



Banking giant JPMorgan Chase was forced into a humiliating climbdown over its plans to hold a question-and-answer session on Twitter today after receiving a barrage of abusive tweets.

The bank had arranged an event where top executive Jimmy Lee would field questions from users in what it hoped would be a positive public relations stunt.

But the company said it had scrapped the session after being flooded with insults, confirming the decision with the matter-of-fact tweet: ' Tomorrow's Q&A is cancelled. Bad Idea. Back to the drawing board.'

Humiliating: Banking giant JPMorgan confirms it has cancelled a planned Q&A on Twitter with a top executive after receiving thousands of abusive tweets over its role in the global recession

Backfired: Banker Jimmy Lee had been lined up to field questions in what the firm hoped would be a positive public relations stunt Under-fire: The banking group, headed by CEO Jamie Dimon (pictured), faces a $13billion fine over over alleged misdeeds in the financial meltdown

JPMorgan last week asked users of the popular microblogging site to send questions marked with the hashtag #AskJPM in advance of the session set for Thursday at 1pm in New York.

Few questions appeared until Wednesday afternoon when responses started piling in.



Some users simply made fun of the bank's attempt to use social media, but many others chose to insult executives or ask barbed questions about bank's recent legal problems and corporate responsibility.

'Reading the #AskJPM Twitter feed makes it seem JPM put a 'kick me' sticker on its back when it rolled out that hashtag,' wrote a user who identified himself as an editor and columnist.

A woman who said she was a community organiser and 'next gen freedom fighter' asked if Lee, a vice chairman and deal rainmaker at the bank, thought it was 'ok to outright lie, cheat and steal.'

Meanwhile, one user asked: 'What's it like working Mexican drug cartels? Do they tip?'

Venting their spleen: Some angry tweets directed at JPMorgan ahead of the planned Q&A session on Twitter

Another posted a picture of a whale spewing bank notes from its blowhole in reference to the 'London Whale' trading scandal for which JPMorgan was fined nearly £600million.



A woman called Charlotte mocked the bank's attempt at social media outreach as an 'epic derailment' and asked: 'Is it true that, while you don't always spit on poor people, when you do, you have perfect aim?'

A blogger and online journalist asked about the scale of the bank's alleged wrongdoing in electric energy trading compared with that in its sales of mortgage securities.

Another user known as 'Guerrilla Educator' asked if anyone in Lee's family had ever been foreclosed upon.

The company's tweets last week said Lee had been part of Wall Street's biggest deals and had worked with Dell Inc and General Motors Co. The tweets said Lee would 'answer your questions on leadership and life.'

It comes as the bank braces itself for a record $13billion (£8billion) fine over its role in the global slump.



Satirical: One user posted this drawing which makes reference to the 'London Whale' trading scandal for which JPMorgan was fined £570million

Read it and weep: More than 66 per cent of the 80,000 tweets sent using the haghtag #AskJPM were apparently negative

It relates to the selling of sophisticated investments based on ‘high-risk’ home loans which resulted in the near collapse of the banking system in 2008.



The penalty will be the biggest so far paid by a bank over alleged misdeeds in the financial meltdown that has plunged the world’s economy into the deepest slump since the Great Depression of the 1930s.



The problems relate to ‘mortgage-backed securities’ created by investment banks in the run-up to the credit crisis.



Problems came when the US housing market ran into trouble and it emerged that some of these securities, that had purported to contain top quality mortgages, were in fact stuffed with sub-prime loans to borrowers who could not afford to repay.



JPMorgan is accused of selling these products knowing that many of the loans involved were high-risk.

The latest fine comes after the bank paid out a £570million penalty in the UK and admitted wrongdoing in the £4billion ‘London Whale’ trading scandal.



That settlement included a £137.6m fine from British watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority, the second biggest penalty ever from the UK regulators. The rest went to US authorities.



In the London Whale affair, a group of traders in the firm’s Chief Investment Office based in London made huge bets on complex financial instruments and covered up their losses for months.



One trader, Frenchman Bruno Iksil, was nicknamed the London Whale due to the size of his bets.

