Predatory and Hijacked Journal Screening Before You Submit

Predatory journals charge publication fees while providing little or no genuine peer review or editorial service. Hijacked journals are a related fraud: criminals clone the name, ISSN and design of a real journal on a look-alike domain and collect fees from authors who think they are submitting to the legitimate title. Both can cost you money, your paper (which may be hard to withdraw or republish) and credibility with employers and evaluators.

There is no single authoritative blacklist. Some lists are unmaintained, some are paid subscriptions with their own criteria, and whitelists such as DOAJ or Web of Science show inclusion, not quality guarantees. So we assemble evidence from several sources — official index records, the Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker, ISSN records, membership directories, domain registration data and the journal's own published content — and report how strong the evidence is.

This service is useful before you submit, before you pay an invoice, when you receive an unexpected acceptance, or when you need to document a decision for a committee or co-authors. It also works the other way: legitimate new or regional journals are sometimes wrongly labeled predatory, and we will say so when the evidence supports them.

No single sign proves a journal is predatory, but several together usually tell a clear story. We weigh them rather than count them.

• Unsolicited emails with flattering language, often addressing you by a paper title rather than your name
• Promises of peer review in days or of certain acceptance
• Very broad or incoherent scope for a single journal
• Indexing badges or metrics that cannot be verified in the official database (for example invented 'impact factors')
• Fees disclosed only after acceptance, or payment to personal accounts
• Editorial board members who cannot be found, or who deny involvement
• Web address similar to, but different from, the journal's legitimate domain

Hijacking is especially dangerous because the journal name, ISSN and even the indexing claims can be real — they belong to the legitimate journal. The fraudsters simply run a separate website. Clones have appeared for journals indexed in Scopus, and some clone content has even surfaced in databases and Google Scholar.

The best defense is to reach the journal from an independent route: the publisher's official site, the Scopus or Web of Science record, or the ISSN Portal. We compare the domain you used with those routes, check registration dates and see whether DOIs resolve to the claimed articles.

Beall's list, once widely used, stopped being maintained in 2017, and copies circulating online vary. Paid services such as Cabells apply their own published criteria and are useful, but no list is complete and some legitimate journals from emerging publishing regions have been flagged unfairly. Whitelists show that a journal met criteria at a point in time, not that every issue is sound. Our reports therefore show the evidence behind each conclusion, so you and your institution can judge it.

Stop further payments, keep all emails and receipts, and send a clear written withdrawal request. Tell your supervisor or research office, who may have seen the journal before. If the article has been published, you may still be able to have it removed, though predatory publishers do not always cooperate; many legitimate journals will consider a paper previously published in a deceptive venue if you disclose the history openly. We can help you document the case and prepare the disclosure; for payment disputes or legal remedies, contact your bank or a legal adviser.