What Goes Around, Comes Around…And Stays Around

"Instant karma's gonna get you."

~John Lennon

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Poor Charlie Wenzel. Poor, poor Charlie Wenzel. He's quite like the hapless fella in the cartoon above. To find out why, read on.

On October 2, 2005 at 9:21pm, this struggling 19-year-old decided to sell some truck gears. He listed them on an industry website for $100, plus $15 for shipping. Sounds fair. A buyer cut him a check, which Mr. Wenzel speedily cashed. Sounds good. Happy ending, right?

Wrong.

Actually, wrong is not a big enough word. People like money. It's nice to have. And Mr. Wenzel wanted more. So naturally, he surrepti- tiously edited the original post and "showed" the buyer the "real price": "$125, plus $15 for shipping." The buyer didn't buy it. He asked Mr. Wenzel to do the right thing. He didn't, so the buyer asked for his money back. Mr. Wenzel not-so-politely declined.

Then, all [h-e-double-toothpicks] broke loose.

Mr. Wenzel didn't nearly grasp a key aspect of social media, namely: people are in no mood. They don't want honesty and trans- parency. They demand it. And they're willing to defend it furiously.

A small but passion-driven army of red-faced people let loose on poor Mr. Wenzel. The threats eventually moved from "clicks to bricks"—in other words, from digital intimidations to real-life ones. One man, who claimed he knew where Mr. Wenzel lived, threatened to "back up a truck and pour cement" on his front lawn if he didn't return the buyer's money.

Naturally, Mr. Wenzel caved. I mean, concrete on your front lawn —for gears?

He genuflected on the forums, begging for forgiveness, and sent the gears back to the buyer. Too little, too late. In that time, the buyer learned the gears were not, in fact, shiny and new, but used…and used. Like any self-respecting gear buyer, the buyer wouldn't take them back.

What ensued likely stunned Charlie Wenzel and serves as a sobering lesson for us all: His last name became synonymous with the word "fraud" across the internet. In fact, "Wenzel" became an Internet "meme," which is essentially an idea that is propagated so far and so fast across the Web that it becomes a verb, like "google."

Mr. Wenzel earned a lifetime achievement award—in the Urban Dictionary, a Web-based, user-generated dictionary of millions of slang words and phrases. Here it is: "To get wenzeled: 1. Defrauded by an Internet seller. 2. Publicly outed as fraudulent person of low char- acter. 3. The act of being screwed on a fraudulent internet sale, as in:

"Hey, wanna buy some brand new gears for your truck?" LOL ok, here's $115." "Now I want $140 for used gears out of my 2WD truck." "Oh snap! I just got wenzeled!"

Imagine how you'd feel if that were your last name being bandied about like that online. This "scarlet letter" will never fade. There's so much association between the words "Wenzel" and "fraud" online that Charlie Wenzel will forevermore be remembered as a fraud, unless he does something cosmically impressive to crowd out those search results—like discovering life on other planets.

Someone actually found Charlie Wenzel's yearbook photo, scanned it and made t-shirts with the photo and a line that says "Handtool." The t-shirts are selling. Just writing that makes me chuckle.

When Mr. Wenzel's children and grandchildren want to learn more about him, they'll go online and discover that grandpa was…a low-class, fraudulent hand tool. And there is nothing he can do about it.

Most people have a strong sense of social justice. Now they have the tools to inflict justice. I love how the new rules of social media are in fact old school.

Mr. Wenzel isn't old school—and in this new media, he got punished for that. He was dishonest and deceptive in his dealings with the buyer. The community made him pay more than $100, plus shipping. He paid with his reputation, plus humiliation. Sorry, Charlie.

Eric Harr is the Founder & President of Resonate Social Media, a leading, integrated social media agency in San Francisco. He is the award-winning host of "Your Social Media Minute" on CBS News. And, he is the best-selling author of the new book "The REAL TRUTH About Social Media: 8 Timeless Truths Uncovered & 8 Monumental Myths Revealed" available now on Amazon.com.

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