Man claims Twitter seizes @Chase handle, gives it to bank

Man claims Twitter seizes @Chase handle, gives it to bank

Texan tweeter Chase Giunta says that Twitter has taken away his @Chase handle and given it to JPMorgan Chase.

Having snapped up the @Chase handle nearly five years ago, Giunta was approached by an anonymous third party domain broker last month who offered $2000 for the account.

Despite the broker eventually upping the bid to $20,000, Giunta told a local Fox TV station that he declined the offer because he could not verify that it was legitimate.

Within hours, Giunta was contacted by Twitter about a trademark infringement - his avatar resembled the Chase logo and included the words "Chase Retweets" while his profile explicitly stated that the account was not related to the bank.

Giunta - who admits that he had been retweeting negative comments about Chase - changed his avatar and profile but was told days later that his account had been suspended.

The @Chase handle has since been taken over by the bank while Giunta, despite claiming to be "a little soured by the whole experience", is still tweeting under @ChaseGiunta.

Twitter has previous form in this area. In 2009, the micro-blogging site suspended the @Sibos account of an anonymous tweeter and handed it over to financial messaging network Swift, which owns the brand name.

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