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When most people think of a corporation, giving back to the community is hardly the first thing that comes to mind. Instead, people might think of an evil, out of control, conglomeration of money and power, hell bent on compounding capital at the expense of any living thing which might fall into its path. For this reason, when Chase announced its “Giving Back to the Community” contest marketing campaign, it came as a rather pleasant surprise.

Here’s the rundown on the way things were supposed to take place:

Chase announced their Community Giving Contest – a multi-round competition said to give away a total of $5 million over the next months. The idea was that facebook users would be allowed 20 votes each, and that these votes would be cast in true democratic fashion, resulting in the top 100 vote recipients being awarded $25,000 each in the first round. Then, in following rounds the winners would get a chance to compete for an additional $1 million. The tag line of this marketing hoax was “you decide what matters.”

Unfortunately, the more accurate tag line would have been “Chase decides what matters.”

According to a New York Times article, at least 3 charities were ranking quite highly when Chase stopped allowing access to vote tallies, and then announced the winners. Mysteriously, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, the Marijuana Policy Project, and Justice For All (an anti-abortion group) were silently left out of the contest, despite several charities winning who had dramatically fewer votes when voting tallies were still available.

Chase’s responses to these allegations have been shady at best. The New York Times said that a Chase representative refused to give any of the vote tallies. In a press release from SSDP, executive director Micah Daigle claims to have asked for a reason for SSDP’s disqualification, only to be told “I don’t have any information to give you” by another Chase representative.

Supporters of SSDP and the other cheated organizations have responded with a heavy message. Comments on the Chase Community Giving page are full of concerns being voiced by SSDP members and other facebook users who are concerned with the dishonesty behind the campaign. John Mola writes “Chase’s unjustified tactics will certainly be a launching point of debate for the drug policy reform movement.” Several posts later Eugene Johnson asks “Was it worth it, Chase?”

In addition to this, SSDP has responded with a campaign to boycott chase. In explaining their boycott, SSDP writes “Chase used this ‘contest’ to promote their brand while misleading the public into thinking that it was a democratic voting process. If Chase can’t be trusted to treat nonprofits fairly in a charity competition, then they can’t be trusted to handle our money.”

Chase has made it clear that they could disqualify participants for any reason. At the end of the New York Times Article mentioned above, a Chase representative is quoted, saying that the 100 finalists “reflect those organizations that received the most votes among eligible participants.”

The clear implication here is that SSDP and MPP were never even eligible based on Chase’s undisclosed and discriminatory criteria. Nonetheless, Chase proceeded to help SSDP participate in their contest, sat by as users spammed each other with the Chase logo, and maintained the illusion of these organizations participation, knowing all the while that they would be kicked out of the competition come awards time.

If Chase would have had the decency to inform these organizations upfront that they were not allowed to participate because Chase does not agree with their politics, they could have saved face in this marketing campaign. Instead, they sat back and reaped the marketing benefits of these organizations spreading the Chase logo all through facebook, despite the fact that these organizations were never even going to be considered.

Due to Chase’s actions throughout this campaign, it seems fair to say that they could care less about principles of democracy, honesty, or helping the community. Rather, Chase is just another sleezy corporation, bent on earning money with little regard for anything else.

It’s great that so many honest and legitimate charities got such nice bonuses this holiday season, but Chase made it clear that they don’t want to help anyone but themselves, and that the money they awarded was simply a dishonest attempt at improving their public reputation.