When it comes to predatory publishers, the best course of action is to avoid any association whatsoever.
  • If you receive an email from a predatory publisher inviting you to submit a paper for publication or to become a reviewer or editor, simply ignoring the email is the best course of action
    Replying to these emails, even to decline their offer, could be construed as permission for them to use your name in association with their predatory journal.
  • Explore adjusting your spam settings to avoid repeated emails from the same predatory publishers.
  • As appropriate, contact your department chair and/or seek legal counsel before taking any actions.

Predatory publishers are known for aggressive email solicitations of authors and editors. This page includes examples of actual emails from potential predatory publishers. For privacy reasons, specific details of the journals and personal information have been removed.

Keep in mind, these are examples of commonly seen emails that are often distributed by predatory publishers. These examples demonstrate some of the tactics predatory publishers use to lure authors into submitting manuscripts for publications.

Dear Dr. X,

It is our immense pleasure to invite you as an Editorial Board member for Journal Y.

Publisher Y in its bag having 3500+ Open Access quality articles and more than 5000 EB has come about in the short period and we have indexed in repositories like ICMJE & Pubs Hub, that adds value to the quality work published and helps in easy access throughout the globe. 

Being aware of your proficiency and expertise in various fields we invite you to be honorable editor for Journal Y. In fact having your profile in our Journal adds visibility to us as well as many viewers will cite your profile.

If you are willing to accept our invitation to serve as an editor to the mentioned journal, kindly send us your CV, Biography, Research Interest & Recent portrait photograph.

Do not hesitate to contact us for any queries. We await your positive response.

Best Regards,
Questionable Journal

Dear Esteemed Scholar,  

Good Morning…..!

Can we have your article for successful release of Volume 5 Issue 5 in our Journal?

In fact, we are in need of one article to accomplish the Issue prior 12th January we hope that the single manuscript should be yours. If this is a short notice please do send 2 page opinion/mini review/case report, we hope 2 page article isn’t time taken for eminent people like you.

Your trust in my efforts is the highest form of our motivation, I believe in you that you are eminent manuscript brings out the best citation to our Journal.

Anticipate for your promising response.

Regards,

Predatory Managing Editor

Once an author has signed a copyright transfer or approves publication of an article in a predatory journal, your chances of having the article removed from the journal are highly unlikely. This is why we stress the importance of avoiding predatory publishers from the start.

In the case that your articles is already published in a predatory journal, you can consider the following options:
Note: As appropriate, contact your department chair and/or seek legal counsel before taking any actions.

  • Contact the publisher (by email, phone, and certified letter) and request for the article to be removed from the website.
    • Most of the time, authors will not receive a response back from the publisher, even after repeated attempts.
  • If you have NOT signed a copyright agreement with the predatory publisher:
    • Your article can still be published in a legitimate journal. We recommend contacting the editor-in-chief of the legitimate journal, explain the situation to them and seek their guidance.
    • If the paper is accepted in a legitimate journal, it may appear with an editorial note on the paper to explain the situation.
Predatory publishers often include names of people within a field of study among the editors, board members, or reviewers for their journals without the knowledge or permission of these people. While you can take action and attempt to have your name removed from these lists and websites, many predatory publishers will simply not respond to your repeated requests.


The following steps can be taken:
Note: As appropriate, contact your department chair and/or seek legal counsel before taking any actions.

  1. Google yourself often: 
    • Often, you will only find that your name has been used without your permission through simple internet searches.
  2. Contact the journal/publisher and ask for your name to be removed from all of their materials.
  3. Do not list these publications on your CV or researcher profiles. Actively make it clear that you are not affiliated with these predatory publishers.

This guide is intended to provide information about predatory publishing and is intended as a guide only. Deciding where to publish is solely the responsibility of individual authors.

This guide was adapted from Predatory Publishing, George Washington University.

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