#Walmart blames fraudster for racist emails sent to customers

A fraudster created false Walmart accounts to send emails with a racist slur to customers, the company said.

The perpetrator found other people’s email addresses and signed them up for a Walmart account. The company sent an auto-generated “Welcome to Walmart” email, but the email replaced the person’s actual name with the slur.

It’s not clear how many people received the email, but dozens complained about the “very disturbing email” on Twitter.

Walmart spokeswoman Molly Blakeman said in an email that the perpetrator “created false Walmart accounts with obvious intent to offend our customers.”

“We were shocked and appalled to see these offensive and unacceptable emails,” she said. “We’re looking into our sign up process to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. We’re also looking into all available means to hold those responsible accountable.”

There’s no evidence of any internal hacking at Walmart, and all falsely created accounts were shut down on Tuesday.