Extra Scrutiny Advised After Scammer Targets Several Women in Sports Media
By Kyle Koster
The Association For Women in Sports Media is reminding its members to scrutinize job opportunities and freelance inquiries after multiple incidents on Monday in which women were targeted by creeps — or a singular creep — misrepresenting themselves with non-existent opportunities.
— AWSM (@AWSM_SportMedia) January 5, 2021
Someone claiming to be a Yahoo Sports manager named Trevor reached out to a journalist and another journalist's mother with unusual, suspicion-raising requests.
Today a man impersonating a Yahoo Sports manager reached out to my PERSONAL NUMBER and told me he had a job for me. I was dubious because it seemed to good to be true.
— Maura Sheridan (@MauraSheridan) January 4, 2021
Then he sent me this.
I’m actually scared. I love working in sports, but this is not okay. pic.twitter.com/lI0jIC1mUz
This just happened to me as well. He somehow managed to get my MOMS phone number while looking to get ahold of me. https://t.co/m5fe6sBCWH
— Claudia Faust (@claudianfaust) January 4, 2021
My mom just texted me this to show y’all. pic.twitter.com/ykQk7jU4iO
— Claudia Faust (@claudianfaust) January 4, 2021
A third instance, this time with the scammer pretending to be from Barstool Sports, cropped up an hour later.
Happy Monday to women in sports and women in sports only #smsports pic.twitter.com/1WatYBp5J4
— Amy McKenna (@AmyCMcKenna) January 4, 2021
Shortly after both these incidents became public, Yahoo Sports' vice president Sarah Crennan stated that this was, quite obviously, not a representative of her company and that security was looking into the matter.
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy took a different tact.
You know what sucks? When somebody gets catfished, does no research on a fake job offer, spreads fake news and doesn’t seem to care. I hate to burst Amy’s bubble but this is 100% fake. I do the hiring and until she posted this fake job offer had zero clue she existed. https://t.co/5ashzFiBL0
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 4, 2021
Thanks for the apology. Oh wait you didn’t apologize https://t.co/VSi5fJmanZ
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) January 4, 2021
AWSM is encouraging women to redirect inquiries to go through a work-affiliated email address to establish validity.
All of these initiations swung over to the highly-dubious side of the ledger almost immediately and were therefore recognized as inauthentic rather quickly, which is better than the alternative. That doesn't make them any less unsavory. It cannot be stressed enough how much garbage female journalists get dumped on their doorsteps every day for the transgression of doing their jobs or seeking other jobs.