Walmart apologizes after racist email with the N-word is sent to hundreds of customers around the world on the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's murder
Walmart has apologized after a racist email saying 'Welcome to Walmart, N*****' was sent to hundreds of customers on the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's murder.
People in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom reported waking up Tuesday to see they'd received the offensive email from the company's official help@walmart.com email address.
Many posted screenshots to social media and expressed their fury at the company.
In a statement, Walmart said it was 'shocked and appalled' and blamed an 'external bad actor'.
The company said someone had created fake Walmart accounts using the email addresses possibly obtained after a previous data breach, and changed their first names to a racial slur.
Walmart said it had blocked emails containing a racial slur from being sent from its domain.
Reuters reported the company was unsure how many emails had been out, but its systems were not hacked and no customer information had been compromised.
Walmart has apologized for sending out an email containing the N-word to hundreds of customers
Hundreds of people who received the email expressed their fury at the company
This person says she called Walmart to complain about receiving the offensive email, and a supervisor told her to read it out loud back to her
This person from the United Kingdom also received the 'disturbing' email
Courtney Rhodman told WXYZ in Detroit that she was appalled to receive an email with 'such a hateful word like that'.
'I didn't think it was real. So, I closed it out, and then I went back into it. I just can't believe it,' she told the station Tuesday.
'And today is George Floyd's anniversary. I just would have never thought I would be here talking about Walmart calling me the word.'
Floyd, 46, was killed in Minneapolis on May 25 2020 after former police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his knee for more than nine minutes.
Rhodman said she has retained an attorney Joseph Goldman to take up her complaint with the company.
The retail giant said the unknown offenders had created fake accounts on its website '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,' a PR rep said in a statement.
Courtney Rhodman told WXYZ in Detroit that she was appalled to receive the email on the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's murder
Walmart swiftly apologized and said they had blocked their servers from sending emails with racial slurs
A woman said she had called the retail giant to complain and the customer service rep had asked her to read the email back to her over the phone.
'Spoke to a 'Supervisor' at Walmart who asked me to read what the email says. I proceed to read 'Welcome to Walmart, N*****' along with everything else.. she said it sounds like it's just an advertisement. Excuse me ma'am do you not know what 'N*****' mean..ugh.'
Another woman from Scotland tweeted how she had also received the email.
'Walmart I received a very disturbing email from you this am. Please DM me so I can share said email,' the person wrote.
Janey Whiteside, Walmart's chief customer officer, apologized to everyone who had received the offensive email.
'We are very sorry that you received an offensive and unacceptable email,' she wrote.
'We are working to update the account sign-up process to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again.'
Whiteside said all of the fake accounts would be deleted.
'Again, we know the email sent was appalling and strongly believe those words should never be used,' she said.
'We're looking into all available means to hold those responsible accountable.'
A security expert said the email addresses had probably been acquired after a previous unrelated data breach.
Vikram Thakur, technical director at Symantec, told CNN Business the bad actors had probably acquired email addresses from an 'easily and freely available 'dump' from a historical third party data dump.
In December, Walmart apologized for using its official Twitter account to troll Missouri GOP Senator Josh Hawley.
After Hawley said he would challenge the Electoral College vote counts on January 6, Walmart's Twitter account wrote: 'Go ahead. Get your two-hour debate.'
The tweet, which was later deleted, ended with the hashtag #soreloser
Hawley hit back at the Arkansas-based retailer, slamming it for its 'insulting condescension'.
'Now that you’ve insulted 75 million Americans, will you at least apologize for using slave labor?’ the US senator wrote.
Walmart said that original tweet was 'mistakenly posted by a member of our social media team'.
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