Disgruntled HMV employees briefly took over the company's official Twitter account on Thursday to express their extreme dissatisfaction at being sacked by the ailing retailer.

The 92-year-old music chain called in the administrators just over two weeks ago, putting 4,500 jobs at risk.

On Thursday afternoon one or more angry employees took to the microblogging site to vent their anger and "tweet live from HR". They managed to post seven subversive messages before the company regained control of the account and deleted the posts.

HMV's official Twitter feed. The tweets were later deleted

"There are over 60 of us being fired at once! Mass execution, of loyal employees who love the brand. #hmvXFactorFiring," read the first tweet.

"Sorry we've been quiet for so long," went another. "Under contract, we've been unable to say a word, or – more importantly – tell the truth."

The first hint that the management was on to them came a little after 2.30pm, when someone tweeted: "Just overheard our Marketing Director (he's staying, folks) ask 'How do I shut down Twitter?'"

The employees were quick enough to get a brief explanation of their protest on to the site before it was removed.

More tweets from HMV workers.

"Under usual circumstances, we'd never dare do such a thing as this," they said. "However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined … and those hard working individuals, who wanted to make hmv great again, have mostly been fired, there seemed no other choice."

They also went on to claim that the official HMV account had been set up by an unpaid intern two years ago.

HMV's joint administrators declined to comment on the tweets, but did confirm that 190 redundancies had been made across the company's head office and distribution network. They said there had been no redundancies in its retail network, adding that all its stores remained open and were still trading.

"Since our appointment as administrators over two weeks ago, we have been assessing the financial position of HMV," said Nick Edwards, a joint administrator. "Following this review, a number of redundancies at the head office and distribution centres have been made. Although such decisions are always difficult, it is a necessary step in restructuring the business to enhance the prospects of securing its future as a going concern."

Edwards said the administrators remained hopeful that they would be able to "secure a future for a restructured business".