Walmart sent people racist emails after someone used their details to create accounts with fake names

The emails, which welcomed new customers to Walmart.com, replaced people's names with a racial slur.

• Dozens of people say they received offensive emails from Walmart's official account.
• The emails, which welcomed new customers to Walmart.com, replaced people's names with a racist slur.
• Walmart told Insider that it is "shocked and appalled" to see the emails and is looking into the issue.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Dozens of people are upset after receiving emails from an official Walmart account that contained a racial slur.

Rachael Campbell, who lives in Scotland and has no access to a Walmart store, received a message from an official Walmart email address on Monday that swapped out her first name for a racial slur. Campbell shared the email from Walmart with Insider.

Dozens of other people received similar messages, and shared screenshots of their "Welcome to Walmart" emails on Twitter. The screenshots show that these emails used the same racial slur.

Walmart confirmed the issue in a statement to Insider, saying it was "shocked and appalled to see these offensive and unacceptable emails."

"We discovered that an external bad actor created false Walmart accounts with obvious intent to offend our customers," a Walmart spokesperson 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."

-rach ???? (@itsrxch_) May 24, 2021

Campbell told Insider that when she checked the Walmart.com account associated with her email address, she saw that it was registered using the offensive name.

"They used my email but not my name, sadly it was a terrible slur," she told Insider on Monday. "I thought it was fake too until I actually went on the Walmart website and managed to get into the account and saw the name I realized it was completely real."

Campbell said she was "completely shocked" that Walmart's website allowed users to register for an account using a racist slur.