At the U.S. Open, an executive from a Polish company named Drogbruk was filmed taking a hat from a child. [1] The tennis player intended to give the autographed hat to the young fan, but the CEO, Piotr Szczerek, quickly snatched it. The video of the incident soon went viral, causing a major online scandal. [5]
The problem grew because of a case of mistaken identity. There is another Polish company named Drog-Bruk, with a hyphen in its name. The head of this company also has a surname similar to Mr. Szczerek. People online confused the two companies and their leaders.
As a result, the innocent head of Drog-Bruk began to receive angry and hateful messages. His company's online reviews were flooded with negative comments from people who thought he was the man from the video. [9] This was very damaging to his company's reputation.
The head of Drog-Bruk had to publicly clarify that he was not the person in the video. He explained that his company was completely separate from Drogbruk. This incident shows how misdirected anger can create serious problems for innocent people, all because of a simple similarity in names.