The whole family’s got this darn cold, so I’m taking a day off. But since I enjoy pointing out the stupidity, evil, and/or ineptitude of large organizations, here’s a story about how Chase stole the Twitter id of a man whose name happens to be Chase:
Chase Giunta is a 25-year-old Dallas graphic designer who, for the past five years, used the Twitter handle @Chase. However, another entity suddenly wanted that handle: J.P. Morgan Chase.
Giunta’s account was originally a personal account, and claimed no association with the bank, but once Giunta started receiving misdirected complaints from bank customers, he sometimes retweeted them, and rebranded the account “Chase Retweets.” The banking behemoth took notice, and was not content to just use @ChaseNews as their Twitter identity. So began a crusade to wrest Giunta’s handle away from him.
…Last month, the bank finally succeeded in its mission, and Giunta now uses the handle @ChaseGiunta. Twitter alleged that Giunta’s account was impersonating the bank, thus violating its parody/commentary/fanpolicy, even though Giunta made it clear he had no association with Chase or J.P. Morgan. Giunta claims right before the handover, he was contacted by a broker and offered $20,000 for the name, which is “strictly against Twitter rules.” He declined the offer, and less than a day later, Twitter sent him the first trademark infringement complaint.
Some of you may recall that Chase is also known for stealing hard-earned rewards points from senior citizens, especially if those senior citizens happened to be fans of the U.S. Mint.
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