'NASA scholarship': Malaysian student claims that he was scammed

When one receives good news, it's only natural to want to share it with everybody.

Especially when the news involves an astounding personal achievement like winning a prestigious scholarship from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Which is exactly what Muhammad Azhar Ali did. On April 30, the 20-year-old student excitedly shared on his Twitter account the amazing news that he had scored in the top 1 per cent of over 3.6 million participants in a 2020 NASA Artemis Student Challenge to design a spacesuit that would adjust to the Artemis 2024 mission to Mars.

His tweet was accompanied by a screenshot of an email supposedly sent by NASA representative Rene Holland to inform him that he had been offered a NASA Degree scholarship by the National University of Singapore (NUS), and a screenshot of his profile photo above the caption "Azhar Ali, Citizen Scientist" on NASA's website, apparently taken with his mobile phone.

Azhar's tweet went viral with over 38K likes and 24.7K retweets as he received praises and congratulatory messages from fellow Malaysians — including Malaysia's Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, and Minister of Higher Education, Dato' Dr Noraini Ahmad.

News about Azhar's alleged NASA scholarship was even featured on Malaysia's local news media.

Sharp netizens did some sleuthing

Unlike the media, Twitter users with a more cautious eye caught some red flags in Azhar's story and they did some fact-checking to verify his claims.

Some people found out that Azhar's name was not in NASA's online listing of citizen scientists as his screenshot had implied and questioned why Azhar had posted a screenshot of his profile on NASA's website with his mobile phone instead of sharing the direct link to NASA's website, as anybody can easily doctor their own photo onto a faux web page.

Twitter users also pointed out that Azhar did not meet the requirements to participate in NASA's Artemis student challenge, as the challenge was only open to US students and all participants are usually based at a certain location in the US.

Additionally, the tell-tale signs of grammatical and typographical errors in Azhar's alleged email from Rene Holland and "offer letter" from NUS also caused more people to doubt Azhar's story.

A 'scam victim'

After receiving backlash from netizens, Azhar decided to make his Twitter account private.

It was on Sunday, May 3, that Azhar's Twitter account was made public again with a long thread to claim his innocence, saying that he was a victim of a scam.

He pleaded with Malaysians to stop spreading false information on his behalf as it could jeopardise his studies and future career. Denying any wrongdoing, he did not see a need to apologise for misleading the public.

"I am still a student, reaching the peak of my career. I have offers from reputable institutions from abroad and I would dearly request for the people of Malaysia to not jeopardise my future career for this uncertainty.

"What we, myself included, can learn from this is that we should always check for authenticity before engaging or posing any form of news to the public. I'm not going to apologise upon being a victim of a scam, " he posted.

Azhar also said that he had written to NUS about the ambiguous emails he had allegedly received from the university.

Netizens are divided about believing his claim of being a scam victim. Some, like Malaysia's Minister of Science, Technology & Innovation, Khairy Jamaluddin, are giving Azhar the benefit of the doubt.  

However, other Twitter netizens remain unconvinced that Azhar is the victim here.

When AsiaOne reached out to NUS to verify Azhar's claim, a spokesperson confirmed that NUS did not send Azhar any offer letter. Here is their full statement:

We would like to clarify that the University did not send a letter with an offer of admission to Mr Muhammad Azhar Bin Muhammed Ali. In addition, the University does not offer a course on "Mathematics/Applied Mathematics for Cosmology".

The NUS Awards for Study Abroad (NASA) Scholarships support study abroad opportunities for NUS undergraduates. It is not offered in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Is this the end of the fiasco? Was Azhar the victim or the scammer? Let's wait and see if there are any more revelations coming up.

melinamoey@asiaone.com