US

Company Apologizes For Randomly Generating This Black Woman’s Password To ‘N****’

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A utility company in Washington issued an apology for its system randomly generating a black woman’s temporary password to “n****.”

Puget Sound Energy (PSE) said it is working to fix the problem so this does not happen again in the future, according to Huffington Post. The slur was spelled out without asterisks.

PSE customer Erica Conway tried to pay her bill online Monday and found herself having to request a new password to activate her account. She then received a temporary password issued by third-party software — “N****HHJ” — according to HuffPo.

“I was truly in disbelief. Because this is not normal, and this is not what a temporary password is supposed to say,” Conway told local station KIRO-TV.

Conway said the reaction from the service company made her even more upset.

After being assured they screen for offensive words, Conway asked the representative they screen for “n****.”

The customer service representative allegedly replied, “No, why would we?”

“We’re in 2018,” Conway replied. “You mean to tell me you’ve never heard this word before?”

“Yeah, in the movies by African-Americans,” the representative allegedly responded, according to King 5 News. Conway felt the need to end the conversation there.

PSE spokeswoman Janet Kim told KIRO-TV the site’s automatic passwords are “not able to be accessed by an employee.”

“This was offensive. There was no question about that. We apologize to this customer, the community, for what has happened, and we are trying to do what we can to make it right,” Kim said, also mentioning the customer service agent Conway dealt with will go through training on how to better handle tricky customer situations, according to HuffPo.