A mum claims she was horrified to be called 'c***' three times after complaining to New Look about a missing refund.
Yvonne Redmond had already tried to contact the retailer online and by phone when she sent a WhatsApp message about a refund on her £15 jeans order on Tuesday.
The full-time carer claims she had to 'do a double take' after receiving an automated reply that greeted her with 'Hi C***'.
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The stunned 39-year-old responded with her details and quizzed the agent why she had been addressed with the explicit slur - but then received the swear word in another two responses.
New Look claims the automated responses generate the name using the customer's WhatsApp profile name and said the offensive word 'did not originate from their customer care team'.
Their customer service team suggested someone must have changed her display name as a 'joke' - however Yvonne says this isn't possible as she could see her name was correct even as the abusive name kept being used.
The shopper even sent New Look a screenshot to prove her name was correct on her end.
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WhatsApp said it was 'unlikely' Yvonne's profile name was changed on her end as this would be visible to her and all her contacts and they found no evidence her account was hacked.
The disgruntled shopper claims that someone working for the retailer may have changed customers' names 'thinking they're funny'.
Yvonne, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, said: "I was mortified. First they take my money for an order they said they couldn't honour, now they swear at me for trying to find out why.
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"I had to do a double take because the message said 'Hi C***'. I said 'did you seriously just call a customer a c***?' Usually I would think it was funny. Once is a mistake, but three times?
"It's concerning that there's someone there that could be changing people's names to all kinds of things, also the fact they're taking money that doesn't belong to them."
Yvonne feared it was 'too good to be true' when she snapped up three pairs of jeans online for £15 last week. Soon enough she discovered the site was affected by a 'system issue' and the store wasn't honouring the sale.
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Mum-of-six Yvonne received an email confirming her order had been cancelled by New Look - but was frustrated to later discover the money was still taken.
After questioning why the money had left her account with New Look's customer services team via WhatsApp, Yvonne then claims she received the messages.
Following her complaint about the rude address, a New Look worker said they had 'changed [her] name to your pretty name Yvonne'.
But on Wednesday morning, after complaining she still hadn't received her refund, Yvonne says she was again addressed as 'c***'. After journalists approached New Look for comment, Yvonne received a refund.
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A New Look spokesperson said: "When customers get in touch with us on WhatsApp, an automatic response is generated using the customer's WhatsApp profile name, which our systems do not permit us to override.
"We have reviewed all customer enquiries, including this one, over the time period in question, and can confirm this was indeed the case with all enquiries we received.
"Our customer care team have spoken to the customer about her concerns to reassure her that the offensive term could not and did not originate from our customer care team."
WhatsApp found no evidence that Yvonne's account was hacked or compromised in any way.