An Instagram account called the “Oprah Scholars Program” purportedly from her OWN network isn’t real. It claimed that the 50,000 people who follow the account would be able to get $20,000.
“Oprah Scholars Program Scholarships for the first 50K followers then partial scholarships to the first 100K followers. Must REPOST & MENTION.Goodluck!” the account reads.
A viral post from the account generated thousands of retweets on Twitter and shares on Instragram. The post is designed to look like Oprah.com’s layout.
It says that the “first 50 thousand followers on our Instagram page @opra_scholar will receive [sic] a 20K scholarship to a school of their choice!” The account got more than 50,000 followers in a few hours.
The post contained a number of misspelled words.
When one tries to search for the post on Oprah.com, nothing comes up about an “Instraram Scholarship Program.”
A number of users on Instragram and Twitter thought it was real.
“I would be honor & amazed if I had the chance to earn a scholarship from @oprah_scholar it’s something I need to live out my dreams of being a student athlete,” wrote one person.
Another added: “Thank you @Oprah ! This could be the best scholarship ever!”
But a number of Twitter users were angry that it was shared widely.
“I knew that Oprah Scholarship thing was too good to be true,” one wrote.
Another added: “And the oprah scholarship Instagram is a scam.”
