The chief executive and chairman of cashless payments vendor USA Technologies has resigned over "inappropriate" comments he posted on the Yahoo Finance message board.
The company says that over a two month period George Jensen posted approximately 450 comments on the forum, primarily under the alias 'investor.texas'.
His activities were discovered late last month after the vendor's board's audit committee was tipped off and risk consultancy Kroll was called in to help investigate.
After reviewing the posts, the board determined that they were inappropriate. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, one message claimed that "USAT will be a hot stock this month" while others saw him arguing with posters criticising USA Technologies.
Jenson admitted writing the messages and was suspended before handing in his resignation last Friday.
The firm stresses its former boss acted alone and that it believes his "actions do not impact or have an effect on the historical financial results or audited financial statements".