October 4, 2023
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Female Athlete News (“FAN”) had our one-year anniversary last month.
Our site is anchored in integrity — which is why earlier this year we parted ways with our digital agency (“Agency”).
The nature of FAN’s professional relationship with the Agency provided the Agency access to confidential digital analytics. The Agency’s access to this information allowed the Agency to have an inside look at the success of FAN.
It has been six months since our domain changed and here at FAN, we believe an explanation is owed to our supporters and readers.
The Agency attempted to engage in corporate extortion. The Agency threatened, harassed, and berated FAN in an attempt to gain pecuniary benefits to which the Agency was not entitled.
The Agency’s employees became unreliable, dishonest, and rude. Ultimately, the Agency chose to hold the domain of “femaleathletenews.com” hostage until their demands were met.
To this day, FAN’s president has refused to pay the ransom for FAN’s original domain and succumb to the Agency’s wrongful demands. Since FAN’s refusal to pay, the Agency has shut down the former site after threatening to display illegal content on the original domain’s homepage.
The unprofessional behavior of the Agency and its employees does not align with FAN’s values. The Agency took advantage of having temporary access to FAN’s financial dashboard. The Agency illegally and unethically returned subscribers’ thoughtful purchases because FAN’s president would not comply with their extortion demand. The Agency did not gain access to personal subscribers’ financial information.
FAN is engaged in ongoing investigations and is cooperating with local and state authorities in their independent investigations.
“The first quarter of 2023 was a test of our mettle” FAN President Jana Benscoter said. “We were essentially punished for having a strong start that focused on developing relationships and trust. The scholarship is not a slush fund. Its sole purpose is to benefit athletes. I am honored to host the scholarship and will not allow anyone to be an exception to the fund. Unfortunately, the actors we worked with were attempting to steal our scholarship fund, exaggerated the cost to build the site, and ultimately, they tried to take over the site. FAN is grateful for having a pro-active business attorney who immediately stood up for children, teenagers, and specifically, women. We will not be harassed or used by a sloppy digital agency, which has grand ideas that do not have any place at FAN.”
As we celebrated our one-year anniversary, we are grateful to the over 30,000 readers who stayed with us. FAN’s actual readership for year one is hard to determine considering the time we spent offline and trying to reconfigure a new, safer site in as timely of a manner as we could.
Thank you to our readers for your support and for trusting us with your stories.
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