Aren’t there people who you’ve “heard bad things about” that you avoid? You would never go ask them about any of the accusations, partly because the person who told these things would be upset with you for betraying them and partly because if what you heard is true then you do want to steer clear.

Poisoning the well (or attempting to poison the well) is a rhetorical device where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say (Wikipedia). Who would ever drink from a well if there was even a possibility that the report that poison had been put in the well could be true?

In any dispute, this is one of the reasons why it’s unwise to only hear from one source (Prov. 17:18); but, if only one source has been relied on, and that source has repeatedly assured their audience that the well has poison in it, then no amount of assurance that the well is safe will be persuasive enough. Reputations are ruined this way. If you’re the recipient of such slander, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to defend yourself. 

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