Walmart apologizes for racist email to customers that included the N-word

Retail giant Walmart was in major damage control this week after someone maliciously sent out emails to customers that included the N-word. CNN reported that dozens of people received emails with a racial slur from a Walmart account. Walmart has apologized to people who received the racist emails and said someone outside the company created fake accounts on its site using the email addresses of the individuals in question. That prompted an auto-generated email from the company that contained the racial slur.

Said Walmart’s Chief Customer Officer, Janey Whiteside in an email to customers who had received the offensive communications, “We are very sorry that you received an offensive and unacceptable email. We are working to update the account sign-up process to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.” She also said Walmart will delete all fake accounts that were created. “Again, we know the email sent was appalling and strongly believe those words should never be used,” said Whiteside. “We’re looking into all available means to hold those responsible accountable.”

In a statement, Walmart spokeswoman Molly Blakeman said, “An external bad actor created fake user accounts with obvious intent to offend our customers. We were shocked and appalled to see these offensive and unacceptable emails. We’re looking into our sign-up process to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.”

Vikram Thakur, the technical director at security software firm Symantec, told CNN that whoever was responsible for the racist message “likely acquired email addresses from an easily and freely available ‘dump’ from a historical third-party compromise.”

Tech experts we spoke with said Walmart should have the capability to block this and other offensive words and if they do not, they need to invest in the technology as this incident will undoubtedly embolden and inspire copycats to try and top the idiot who sent this one out.

The company did not share how many people received the emails; however, a number of people took to social media to say they were recipients.