First National Bank (FNB) has apologised over a “distasteful” bomb tweet that was sent out from the bank’s official Twitter account @Rbjacobs.
On early Tuesday morning, the Twitter handle of the FNB Guy (@Rbjacobs) on the popular social network responded to a user about the whereabouts of ‘Steve’, who was part of FNB’s ‘beep bank’ radio campaign.
The radio campaign involved ‘Steve’ from ‘beep bank’ calling FNB customers in a bid to get them to switch to ‘beep bank’, but with no success.
So, when a Twitter user on Tuesday morning sent out a tweet to find out what had happened to ‘Steve’, the FNB Guy (@Rbjacobs) replied in an uncharacteristic manner.
“@fnb where has Steve disappeared to? Your radio campaign just isn’t the same,” posted by Stu (@gormleystuart).
“He’s some where (sic) in Afghanistan, putting a bomb under a wheelchair and telling the cripple to run for it!” the @Rbjacobs twitter handle response read.
South African Twitter users subsequently went into overdrive complaining about the tweet.
ITWeb Africa enquired about the tweet and received the following response from FNB.
“FNB is deeply disappointed in and sincerely apologises for the tweet published on Tuesday morning 22 April 2014 regarding the whereabouts of Steve. We find the comment distasteful and in conflict with our corporate values. The tweet has been retracted. The matter will be investigated and appropriate disciplinary action taken,” stated Suzanne Myburgh, acting head of digital marketing and media at FNB.
The bank has since also deleted the tweet response from the @Rbjacobs timeline.
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