REVENGE! Freelancer Hijacks Gym Chain's Web Site Over Pay Dispute

Frank JonesWeb designer Frank Jonen says he's not been paid by gym chain Fitness SF, and he's taking a stand. Specifically, he's hijacked Fitness SF's web site and replaced all its content with his own, tastefully typefaced protest page.

The new site begins, "Fitness SF preferred to ignore our invoices instead of paying them. As a result this website is no longer operational."

It goes on to take a stand on behalf of all freelancers who get stiffed on their bills by big corporate clients:

I am also writing this on the behalf of the tens of thousands of freelancers and small businesses out there facing larger corporations who can afford to starve them out.

... It’s people like this who cause company after company to go bankrupt. An injury to one is an injury to all of us. We need to make a stand against crooks like this.

The gym denies Jonen's claims, according to Ad Age:

"It got hacked," said one worker who answered the phone at the SOMA gym. "We are trying to fix it now." Said a manager who was handed the phone at that location: "The allegations are not true."

The gym told Business Insider:

On Wednesday evening, our domain name Fitness SF was hacked and stolen by our former web designer Frank Jonen. Frank was hired on May 16th, 2012 to develop a functional website for our brand. A $5,000 payment was made to him on the same date. In his proposal, he stated that the website would take 10 weeks to complete. He missed numerous deadlines including our brand launch in September. In December, he voluntarily passed the incomplete and non functioning website to our new design firm.

Now, Frank is attempting to portray himself as the victim when truly the victim is Fitness SF as he attempts to get paid for work he did not complete and has decided that blackmail is the way to accomplish that.

Here's the full front page of the site, which will doubtless disappear fairly soon: