Bring out the Twitter Fail Whale — better yet, the London Fail Whale — for JPMorgan Chase. Somehow not realizing that there would be a lot of people grumpy at the big bank for the London Whale brouhaha last year, bogus credit card protection problems, billions in allegedly toxic mortgage securities and a slew of government investigations JPMorgan asked Twitter users yesterday to submit questions for a Q&A with Vice Chairman Jimmy Lee today. And boy, did people have questions — just not the ones JPMorgan wants to answer.

The Q&A was over before it ever got the chance to begin at its scheduled time today when users poured forth an avalanche of sassy, mocking and otherwise snarky invectives using the hashtag #AskJPM.

A spokesman for the company tells JPMorgan the forum was supposed to give college students a chance to chat directly with a senior executive, reports Bloomberg, but it quickly soured with Tweets like: “Can I have my house back?”; “Is it true ‘JPM stands for ‘Just Pay More’?”; “What’s your favorite type of whale?”; “Do you have a secret jail in your offices so your executives get at least one chance to see the inside of one? #AskJPM”; and “As a young sociopath, how can I succeed in finance? #AskJPM”.

You get the idea.

“#Badidea! Back to the drawing board,” the bank wrote less than six hours after its first post inviting quetions. That didn’t go over well either, earning about 6,000 responses, notes social media tracking service Topsy.

It’s an important lesson for big companies to learn: If you want to engage in social media, you’ve got to be prepared to hear everything – the good and the bad. It’s not like Twitter and Facebook are just there to help you cull a docile flock of sheep whose numbers you can brag about to all the other companies. These are real people who will reply in an honest manner if you ask them. Do with that what you will, but canceling a scheduled Q&A just goes to show how unready you are to listen.

JPMorgan Twitter Hashtag Trends Against Bank [Bloomberg]

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