Dozens of people went on Twitter to speak out after seeing the racial slur from what seemed to be a Walmart account. The person used real email addresses to create accounts with offensive language as the customer name. The “Welcome to Walmart” message is an automatic email sent out once a new user account is made. A Walmart spokesperson said, “We discovered that an external bad actor created false Walmart accounts with obvious intent to offend our customers. We were shocked and appalled to see these offensive and unacceptable emails.”

Walmart says their servers were not hacked and no customer data was affected. The company did not say how many people received the emails but numerous people shared their outrage online. A Twitter user named Camille posted: “I don’t use the N-word. Never will. Never been called one either—well, not until 3:08 AM EST when one of the world’s largest retailers decided it was time to break the streak?!” @53Clare posted: “@Walmart i received a very disturbing email from you this am. Please dm me so i can share said email.”

This is cyber attack called “spoofing” can cause major problems for a company because consumers often believe that the messages are legit. Should Walmart be held accountable for this incident?

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