Following OMICs request, I wrote an article for them in their "open" legal medicine journal. The reviewing process was very strange and my article was published in a special issue that ended up having nothing to do with my article's content. I was also charged for my article which is unusual for articles written under request.

After a year of investigation, I found out the editor of the special issue had never even heard of my article and OMICS was unable to give me the qualifications of the reviewers who had apparently reviewed my article. I asked the main editor to investigate. He did this but was unable to be informed by the group either. This led him to resign from his position.

I retrieved my article and lost $900 but kept my scientific integrity ;)

Since then, I have learnt a lot about unethical behaviours of publishing groups. Relying on a white list is a way to prevent this from happening. I suggest trusting publishers that are members of OASPA, and journals that are indexed by DOAJ.

http://oaspa.org

https://doaj.org

You may find useful information here

http://scholarlyoa.com/2014/03/05/oxford-on-alert-predatory-conference-organisers-are-coming-to-town-or-oxford-beware-omics-predators-are-coming-to-town/

And a list a potential predatory publishers

http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

I always check the list when I have a doubt

Following OMICs request, I wrote an article for them in their "open" legal medicine journal. The reviewing process was very strange and my article was published in a special issue that ended up having nothing to do with my article's content. I was also charged for my article which is unusual for articles written under request.

After a year of investigation, I found out the editor of the special issue had never even heard of my article and OMICS was unable to give me the qualifications of the reviewers who had apparently reviewed my article. I asked the main editor to investigate. He did this but was unable to be informed by the group either. This led him to resign from his position.

I retrieved my article and lost $900 but kept my scientific integrity ;)

Since then, I have learnt a lot about unethical behaviours of publishing groups. Relying on a white list is a way to prevent this from happening. I suggest trusting publishers that are members of OASPA, and journals that are indexed by DOAJ.

http://oaspa.org

https://doaj.org

I recently came upon a site that constructs abstracts and papers for predator journals.

http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/

Dear Colleagues, I am shocked from these information about OMICS because I registered a few days ago to a conference according to invitation of OMICS Group and I payed for it. the conference is name DENTISTRY 2015 it will be held in Dubai. Can anyone give me information whether this conference is real or deceive??? with my best regards

registration link: http://dentistry.conferenceseries.com/registration.php

I would seriously consider going as you are likely to waste your time there...

http://scholarlyoa.com/2013/01/25/omics-predatory-meetings/

Beall's interview explaining how OMICS functions as a predator group:

http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/publications/bitstream/1840.2/2544/1/ElectronicResourcesForum_39.2.pdf

You will find many witnesses reporting the lack of organisation by OMICS:

http://cabbagesofdoom.blogspot.ch/2013/07/omics-group-conferences-sham-or-scam.html

Here is an interview of the group leader:

http://poynder.blogspot.ch/2011/12/open-access-interviews-omics-publishing.html

Thanks a lot Mr. Vaucher for your  precious  advise

Here is an answer from one of the editing managers that was provided to me after asking them about the reviewing process:

------------------------------------

From: editor.tm

Date: 4 February 2015 at 06:30

Subject: RE: Inviting submissions on Translational Research

To: Paul Vaucher

Dear Dr. Paul Vaucher,

Greetings for the day!!

Thank you for the prompt reply and for your interest.

I am pleased to answer queries posed by you.

• As it is a regular issue which is related to all research topics of research works on translational medicine, complete Editorial Board will be responsible for the articles received for this issue.
• If it is for a special issue, then a specific editor will be handling the complete session till publishing the articles online.
• Regarding a peer review process, initially article will be submitted to one of the Editor’s on our Board as per the research topic submitted and we take at least 2 review comments for the article submitted.
• After receiving the review comments, it will be notified to editor and further processing will be done as per editor’s decision whether to revise/reject/accept for publication.
• The entire process may take atleast 14-21 days long and which may vary based on many factors.

I hope I clarified you and please feel free to contact me for further clarifications if required.

Thanking you.

Regards

Koyada. S

Associate Managing Editor

for Editor-in-Chief

Translational Research

----------------------------------------

I would like to point out that this was not the case at all for the article I had submitted to another journal from the same group (Journal of Forensic Research). I only got a single short response from an an anonymous reviewer without any comment. The paper was then accepted by the managing editor without any opinion from the editor in charge of the special issue I published in. The editor in chief had never even heard of my article and the special number was issued under the name of an editor who had resigned months before the issue even came out. He had not ever heard of my article either. The editor in chief asked about the process and to be informed of the names of the academics who reviewed my paper. Apparently this was impossible as they were not registered on the system. Apparently the entire process of academic editing was solely run by the managing team who have no experience in the domain of the publications. When asked if such procedures were normal or not for the journal, we never obtained a response. The editor in chief resigned after this. I had my article retrieved but never got refunded.

I have published full-paper articles with OMICS. Journal of Physical Chemistry and Biophysics,  Journal of Earth Scienece and Climatic change and few to other journals. NO problem until today (2015, May). The review process was normal. There were two cases with very strict review. The articles can be found at the "supposed" sites and are also found in CROSS-REF and Scholar.

I have to mention that in the beginning  I asked first for the fees before my first submission. Therefore, I did not identified a problem. The emails sent were responded for those "supposed"

This is my experience. And nothing more

Excellent article Paul, this highlights the problem for authors but also fellow researchers and students when they come across papers published in this type of journal.

Today I discovered that Beall can enter a publisher on his list who does not deserve to be there and not retrieve it. This seems the case for MDPI, an open source publisher based in Basel Switzerland that has solid ethics in publication policies.

http://poynder.blogspot.ch/2015/04/the-open-access-interviews-publisher.html

Beall describes its list with the word "potential", which is very important to keep in mind. No list can be definitive, false positives are always possible. The list helps you to be cautious but does not tell you what to think or do. I thnik we may use it as a tool.

CEO has brought all the proof needed to counter Beall's allegations and he still refuses to remove MDPI from his list. I think the actual system is giving too much power to a single man. Given the consequences such a decision can have on authors, reviewers, editors and publishers,  we need the procedure to be transparent and clear. Is it not time to create an independent organism that can verify and check editing procedures?

WoW! 

I submitted my paper for 'Journal of Biosensors & Bioelectronics' (Omics publisher),after 2 month i received acceptance letter ,but i don't have Trust to this journal, and  did not pay the charge .Yesterday i was Surprise ! because my paper publish in this journal !!!!

http://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/application-of-artificial-neural-network-for-modeling-and-prediction-of-mtt-assay-on-human-lung-epithelial-cancer-cell-lines-2155-6210-1000170.php?aid=56483

Hi Mostafa ......same thing have happened to me .....now they are sending me mails  seeking for payment ......best part is they are bargaining.......:   :p  

Now the question arises how to avoid them.......

My article was reviewed by two reviewers apparently and was accepted.

I have not been asked for any payments and it is already published with a link online.

The reviewer comments were never sent to me so that is a problem. That paper was a lot of work and difficult to write. I only hope I did the right thing sending it there.

What we can say from our testimonies:

Here is what I suggest doing to make things clear with the publisher:

• Contact the leading editor of the journal you submitted to and ask him/her if they gave their approval for the final version or if another academic editor did so.
• Mention your suspicion that the reviewing process was not done correctly and that you would like them to enquire and inform you how many reviewers corrected your draft and if they had the skills required to do this.
• Send a letter to OMICS asking them to retract completely your article unless they can show you proof there was not a misconduct in the reviewing process.
• If this is not done, warn them that you are seriously considering taking legal action against them under US and Californian juridiction for all harm that can be done by publishing the article without a proper peer review procedure, before corrections have been brought by authors, and without the authors or academic editors approbation.
• Speak about your case and politely recommend to the journal's editor to resign from his/her position for the sake of their reputation.

1. Never publish in OMICS journals. They have 10,000 or so journals running with 1-2 articles or no papers in some issues over years!!

2. Never attend their conferences. Only money minting acts.

3. Their Impact Factors are fake/ self-assigned.

4. Their pay and publish models does not involve peer-review.

5. Editorial boards are funny and weird- no names.

6. They operate from Hyderabad, India, from a small house of an individual.

7. No better than on line scam.

8. thanks to Jeffrey Beal's List that they are at right place: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

9. Their speaker profiles, YouTube videos and organizational skills are all laughing stocks.

Thanks,

Biswa

Wow..... I think I got out of this just in time!

I was approached to write an article for them 2 weeks ago - a short communication. I initially agreed but, after looking into their reputation I will not be publishing with them!! Thank you all for your input here.

It is these sort of forums that help the rest of us not to make the same mistakes!!!

What a shame for Omics!

I have registered to go speak in one of their NanoWorld 2016 in Cape Town, South Africa. Must I still attend it?, I have paid for their registration fee.

I think i got out of this just in time, because i register  for Atlanta Addcition Conferences 2016. Avoid losing 1700 usd, thanks!

Thanks for sharing this useful information, and it really helps researchers to know where they should not publish.

A few days ago, someone called every member in our research group -- post-docs, grad students, and undergrads -- apparently from a list of information acquired through the university. After I received two calls for other group members (in two minutes), the same person called me and asked me to speak at a conference that is not related to the research our group actually does. I am very skeptical of the quality of a conference that cold-calls students outside the area of expertise to speak.

I later found an e-mail in my spam folder inviting me to the same conference -- it actually had "Plenary Speaker invitation" in the subject line. I knew it could not be legitimate, but I went to the website of the supposed conference. The links went to conferenceseries.com, which appears to be in the business of creating and advertising thousands of conferences, most of which are only 2-3 days, with costs far in excess of those typical of well-established conferences arranged by professional organizations. (Well, the professional orgs I'm familiar with, anyway.)

Clearly just a money-making scheme for conferenceseries.com... and OMICS. Because conferenceseries.com is a subsidiary of OMICS. (As is iMedPub -- notice how easy it would be for someone to confuse it with PubMed?) So beware -- OMICS goes by more than one name.

Thanks everyone! Just got out of it in good time. Saves me some cash!

Fake from A-Z 

Do you imagine there is no reviewing process? unbelieving they use articles with the name of victims as advertising to attract more victims to publish.

Recently they sent their news to linked in! with published articles without permission of the victims of articles.

Aly R Abdel-Moemin

thank you Dr. Paul for drawing attention to such  publisher 

Another deception,

Omics claim that they are not in position to remove the publication from the system because it has DOI. This is big lie if you checked all the DOI in  articles in press you will find that all DOI are fake as soon as you click on DOI you will find page error, try the following link:

http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2157-7110.1000598

Best regards

DO NOT go to any of their conferences! They are now trading as Conference Series LLC as they have been banned from trading as OMICS in the US. I went to the Neuro-oncology conference last week in Brisbane. There was a conference there but it was terrible. It was advertised as a 3 day conference then after registration it was shortened to 2 days with no refund for the difference. A week before the conference we were told the conference would be merging with a Neuro-rehabilition conference, hence half the people there did not understand our proteomics/ molecular work and vice versa. Upon arrival we received a lanyard and folder, however only 5 out of the 20 scheduled speakers were present over the 2 days and we were told the others had travel issues and couldn't make it. Speakers had to chair their own sessions as no one from the organizing committee was there. Colleagues of those present, were listed as part of the organizing committee or advertised as speakers but when asked about it, they had no knowledge of the conference. The conference was moved to a cheaper venue not long before the date and those that organized accommodation through the conference were not refunded the difference in accommodation costs. These conferences are a SCAM for them to make money and we are all in the process of canceling our credit cards as they have our details and also our signatures from when we signed in on the first day. 

I wish I'd seen this about 3 months ago.

One of my former fellows submitted a paper to the International Research Journal of Cardiology. It's actually listed in PubMed, so I thought "what the heck."

They do have an open format with a publication fee. Once accepted, they asked for payment (which we sent them) and now it's been almost 2 months since payment sent and they're not able to locate it, won't answer emails, and I'm pretty sure the money is lost.

It's not likely worth the time / effort / money to bring legal action, so we're likely out of luck.

Jeff Schussler

Funny OMICS,

They sent me a funny email:

MOJ Food Processing & Technology [email protected]

Today at 15:44

Dear Dr. Aly R Abdel-Moemin,

Hope this email finds you in good spirits.

We feel honor & cherish to share this announcement. Well, we are glad to inform you that till now MOJ Food Processing & Technology have successfully proved its best in carrying 193 articles in its hand with the massive support of eminent people like you. Moreover our main intension is to end up the August with 250 articles and step in to the next month with 250+ series. Hence, we request you to kindly submit your 2 page Opinion/Mini Review within 15 days and help us in achieving our goal in time. Your single article helps us a lot.

Indeed I am requesting some renowned people like you to support us by submitting your articles to release the issue successfully, where your presence of article will increase the visibility for our Journal. We will be glad to publish your article in this issue.

Kindly acknowledge this email within 24hours.

Hope you understand my situation and we look forward to receive your article at the earliest possibility.

Await your reply.

Best regards,

Deborah Clark

MOJ Food Processing & Technology

MedCrave Group

E-mail: [email protected]

Is Mathews another new predatory publisher, as i have received the following email. After checking the website, no single paper has been published there yet.

Dear Dr. X Xin,

Warm Greetings from Mathews Journal of Immunology & Allergy!

We take this opportunity to introduce ourselves as an open access publishers with a motto to serve the scientific community. We publish peer-reviewed articles related to different aspects.

We are planning to release Inaugural Issue under the esteem guidance of our Editorial board members. We welcome you to submit your manuscripts and extend our invitation to your colleagues and subject experts in the field of Immunology & Allergy.

Articles on Immunology & Allergy can be of Research, Reviews, Case Reports, Opinion articles, Short communications, etc.

 Kindly submit your articles on or before 22nd August 2016 to-

[email protected]

Warm Regards,

Christina Roslin

Mathews Journal of Immunology & Allergy

Mathews International Publishers

40 Clinton ST, STE L #32250

Newark, New Jersey

USA, 07102.

Xin Lai,

Beall's list added Mathews to his list of questionable publishers:

https://scholarlyoa.com/2016/01/07/snapshots-of-recent-additions-to-the-list-of-questionable-publishers/

Dear All,

OMICS sent me a request to revise a manuscript submitted to one of its journals.Should I deny this offer? It is also an issue very far from my real interest and competence..

thanks and regards

Raffaella,

This is a surprise! So they actually do sometimes ask to review. If I were you, I would first consider if the article is in my field and if I have the skills and knowledge to do a proper review. I would then consider if I had sufficient time to do the review. I would finally read the abstract and see if the quality of the article is worth reviewing. If I would answer yes to all these questions, this would mean that OMICS is better at choosing and having people review article than I believe them to be and they might deserve we start improving the quality of their publication. On the other hand, they have had some unethical behaviours towards academics and I would reconsider contributing to journals published by OMICS given I would not want my name to be associated to their work.

Dear Paul,

thanks for your kind reply. Actually,I had already declined the Omics request since the article was really too far from my competence, I work on food chemistry and the article was on nutrition and obesity in particular!!! Furthermore I was a little afraid to fall into some trap, since they invite me as keynote speaker almost once a month in expensive congress all over the world ...

Dear Raffaella and others,

Omics is a virus, if you come close from them they will stick with you, with everyday email with comics stuff such omics. We have said hundred times that OMICS is a shame publishing process that act without coordination to publish without permission from authors, without copyright, ask you to pay fees for publishing if you did not pay no problem we will publish free, use articles of victim authors to send advertising for themselves in linked in and other social communication. I have a sign on the door of my laboratory say ‘’No Omics and Similars’’  

Best regards

Aly with no s

Wooow ..  It's  just  now  that  I  came across  with  this  discussion  here  and  while I'm  reading  surprised  the  comments , I'm really  starting  to  be  scared .  Wished  I could  knew  this  several  months  ago  with reference   to  one  of  their  international  conferences .  Is  it  that  really  bad  reputation  they're  having ?  

Very bad news to find good scientists are involved with OMICS as editors and in the editorial board please see this

http://www.omicsonline.org/editorinchief-food-processing-technology-open-access.php

http://www.omicsonline.org/editorialboard-food-processing-technology-open-access.php

I just realized to have reviewed 4 articles for Omics: the emails came with a generic "Medical Journals" header and I did not bother to search for more details. In 3 cases I send a "reject" review and in 1 a "major revision". On the online system for each manuscript  only my revision record was present but  the "author decision letters" reported one much more accommodating review after mine and encouraged to submit a revision of the paper (3 out of 4 manuscripts). They were finally accepted for publication.

I also did some research and I found things like this: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/05/us-government-accuses-open-access-publisher-trademark-infringement

https://scholarlyoa.com/2013/01/25/omics-predatory-meetings/

http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2013/09/faux-journals.aspx

Of course I should have realized much earlier what was going on, but certainly this was a very good opportunity to decide not to review papers for them in the future.

Yes. It was surprising to see that this journal "Drug Designing: Open Access" has an impact of 5.5 and it is shown only in their own website and not in any other official websites. Hope no one mislead by this. Beware guys.!!

Finally some justice as @Omicsjournals gets penalized by the US Government Agency: http://bit.ly/2bntWCZ  #openaccess is NOT #predatory

The Federal Trade Commission has taken legal actions against OMICS, iMedPub, Conference Series, and Srinubabu Gedela, the president and director of all these companies based in India. They are accused of "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce". The full complaint is available at:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/160826omicscmpt.pdf

Good news Paul and Biswapriya

Hello all. Wow, too late I read this blog about OMICS reputation. I was invited to be part of their Editorial Board via e-mail, right after I published my first paper as a corresponding author, in PLOS ONE. They say "We would like to request your gracious presence as our Editorial Board member and help us to develop the journal as an international open access scientific knowledge dissemination platform in the subject". I checked the website and saw it has an ISSN, so I agreed and sent my CV as they requested. They immediately offered me a free editorial paper - which did sound very attractive. After few e-mails, they sent me a link with my biography, but it was written in very poor english.  Now I don´t know if it is a good idea to ba part of their Editorial board. As I am in the starting point of my carreer, now I am thinking I should I retract, but I am confused. Is that really fake? What would you do if you were in my shoes?

I would get out of it!

To follow up on Preyesh Stephen's comment, it is important to note that none of their journal have official impact factors. When looking at the web page of any of their journals there is a note stating:

"*Unofficial 2015 Journal Impact Factor was established by dividing the number of articles published in 2013 and 2014 with the number of times they are cited in 2015 based on Google search and the Scholar Citation Index database. If 'X' is the total number of articles published in 2013 and 2014, and 'Y' is the number of times these articles were cited in indexed journals during 2015 then, impact factor = Y/X"

So basically they mislead people with self-calculated IF that do not mean anything since their journals are not indexed in regular bibliography database.

Furthermore, most if not none of their journal is indexed in Web of Science. A very few articles could be found through pubmed (for some unknown reasons some articles are indexed but not all the articles from the same journal).

Thank you for making this information available. I am adding my reply, hoping that persons that follow me on RG see the scam that OMICS has been operating. I too get daily requests to review or submit manuscripts from this OMICS group. I always delete them and only review or submit manuscripts to journals that I know are reputable.

Keep well away from OMICS group scam journals..  Some colleagues and I submitted a MS to their Primary Health Care: Open Access journal.  After responding to some very brief reviewers comments MS was accepted, then after payment, all communication stopped.   We contacted the "Editor in Chief" who replied it was not his journal, he was not editor in chief, nothing to do with him!!!             

Stumbled across this thread today. I have been reviewing manuscripts for OMICS since April 2016. Shortly after one of my manuscripts was published (in a non-OMICS journal). The allure was the prospect of obtaining open access with a future manuscript without the cost. (since reviewers were said to obtain open access without the fee.)  I had not reviewed manuscripts previously and spent quite a bit of time developing my process. I provide credible feedback to all of the authors. It looks from what I am reading here that I may have been played!?!  Enjoyed reviewing but.... 

so what is the trusted institute for conferences registration

I did publish 2 papers in OMICS journals- It looks now that their site does not open anymore? Can anyone confirm my observation, i.e., my DOI does not open any more. Is OMICs already shut down. It sounds really predatory journals

OMICS is a business, 'OMICS Co. Ltd'. #I once reviewed a manuscript for them and suggested to the Editor that it be rejected but was shocked to learn that the manuscript was published in the same state.

Never publish or review for the; is a "professional" SCAM group. 

I wrote an article for them under request once, and this is my story: 

After 6 months under review status, they contacted me asking me to propose 3 reviewers of my own confidence due to the difficulty of the topic. I was notified of the acceptance of the article without any modification or comment, the day after I proposed the 3 reviewers. Also, I was asked to review the galleys for the "official" publication. During this short review,  noticed several translation errors, as well as typographical and spelling mistakes that had not been taken into account. In addition, it was noted the wrong order of the surnames of authors.

We sent an email as advise of all "errors", to which they replied that they would take all of the aforementioned as consideration and make the necessary arrangements. After two days, I received an email requesting a fee payment for $ 1099 dollars due to review costs;  I (obviously) answered with displeasure by stating and attaching my invitation to participate as support on the "journal". After that, they sent me another email requesting the payment, and offered an option of "payments" and their version of "green Open access" that had a cost of $ 999 dollars.

At the end I rejected to pay having demonstrated the deception that their service represents

They wanted to charge me my friends review as "review fee" 

Finally, the article was published with all mistakes and traslation errors  on the original site for the journal (as punishment I suppose) 

If someone wants the mails that I kept with the company with all pleasure I will send them to you. Also the article is in my research gate profile as a reminder of how silly someone can be for a little of prestige

NEVER ANSWER AND INVITATION FROM this group

Thank you Julio Cesar for new inspiration  notes on  this  topic !     ( I recently received a note of  invitation to publish , from probably a branch of them , and  , after  everything  I  learn  from  the  debating here these  past  few  months ,  I simply  ignore now  ha.. ) 

Great and insightful piece of information. Thanks for sharing

I have just noticed that the Jeffrey Beal's List is no longer available. Anyone knows why and if a similar alternative list is available?

For those wanting to access to Beall's list, here is an archive of the web site:

https://web.archive.org/web/20170112125427/https://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

Not quite sure why sharing my experiences with OMICS led to down votes? The take away from my experience was that I had no idea that I was taken advantage of (until I stumbled across this thread). I had put considerable effort and time in doing "the right thing" when it came to reviewing manuscripts. The goal was to contribute to the greater body of knowledge through academic intercourse. Now to know that my efforts aided to a large scam really irritates me to no end. Although my costs were indirect, the time I invested added up to thousands of dollars. "Live and Learn". Please share the deceptions with all of your academic colleagues.  

Omics publications is history- Please try any site on internet- does not open- Looks Crooked ran away

I do not want to comment about OMICS but the fact remains that now a days even the Analytical Chemistry journal of American Chemical Society publishes substandard research papers. recently, I raised the issue on some fundamental mistakes in the publication :

Working Paper: Comments on: Highly sensitive and selective method for detecting ultra-trace levels of aqueous uranyl ions by strongly photoluminescent responsive amine modified cadmium sulphide quantum dots’ by Raj Kumar Dutta and Ambika Kumar, Anal. Chem., 2016, 88 (18), pp 9071–9078.

My query was not satisfactorily replied by the Editor or Editor-in-Chief of the journal. I do not know , why editors are promoting Scientific misconducts. ? Similarly in other journals also published by Springer, Elsevier, Indian Chemical Society, RSC etc

In my opinion, it is the quality /originality in research papers , which is more important because your manuscript will definitely cited  /self cited  in other publications.

I have raised such issues through RG :

Why some journal Editors/Journals are encouraging scientific misconduct?

Can any Doctorate Degree be awarded based on the Ph.D. thesis publications in symposium or/seminars volumes without the name of Guide? and others.

Working Paper Letter to the Editor: Query related to publication titled “T...

Working Paper Comments on: Highly sensitive and selective method for detec...

Previous Replies interesting, I agree with the answers and explanations above.

Another viewpoint writted by a journalist from India https://www.openthemagazine.com/article/investigation/the-dubious-science-of-predatory-journals

I need help from yours.By mistake I have submitted an article in OMICS. Now I know   they are fake and i do not want to publish my article, but the journal are threatening me by saying that, if i don't pay the fee they will reject my article but don't withdraw and I can,t  publish  that article anywhere. So what I should do now?

This is my email for response [email protected]

MD, Withdraw your article and forget the entire incident.

Advice for letting OMICS release your article

To retrieve your article, you need to have some form of suspicion or proof of misconduct. I would therefore suggest you ask the editor in chief of the journal you submitted to, to attest that he or a member of the editorial team that has proficiency in the field is the person that accepted the article and that the reviewers were qualified to assess your article.

Given they adapt your article to the journal format, they are meant to send you a proof read for you to validate before being aloud to make your article public. I am not aware of Indian rules, but I do assume that legal action can be taken for refusing to withdraw an article that does not comply to the own journal's standards.

Dear Paul,

It is very hard process to withdraw or retract your manuscript or  an article from OMICS!!. There is no one in charge in these journals also the message is always ignored by omics as  they believe in one way communication that means we do not listen but always send our final word!

I have battled 3 months to do this but no use. I have gone to many institutions to withdraw my article but they seem that these institutions have no power to do this. No desperate but we need to see action organization to do this. Also dissemination the harmful effect of these journals on scientific life is encouraged.

It is long thread but we should carry on!

Aly

Yes according to BioScience in Kurdistan OMICS is fake see the like below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uguuAjd6Wc&t=16s 

Thank You all of You for the warning and valuable information.

once I was invited to review a manuscript, which was a direct copy of another already published paper, thus I present a suggestion as "rejection". nonetheless, I was later on informed that the manuscript had been published! what a ridiculous manuscript processing procedure. hence, please never ever trust this publishing group!

In December 2016 The New York Times published an article on the big business of fake academia. OMICS was featured as being the most extreme of the lot.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/upshot/fake-academe-looking-much-like-the-real-thing.html

I would recommend staying away from OMICS.

If one needs to withdraw one's own work from an OMICS journal or conference proceeding and OMICS does not respond, as several commenters have indicated above, I would recommend using PubPeer followed by Retraction Watch.

http://www.pubpeer.com/

http://www.retractionwatch.com/

These also work for reporting flawed, faked or plagiarized work by other authors.

Sincerely,

Mark Frautschi

Thank you, Mr. Vaucher and other comments. 

My manuscript is still under review and I found that all of their emails sent to me were in the SPAM. 

I definitely will not pay for anything when they request me. ( it costs 1519 USD for my paper in Dentistry)

I just got accepted by them, I didn't pay yet is there a chance I can withdraw?

 Considering what they do and how they behave, I would definitely avoid being associated with them and will never publish with them:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/05/us-government-accuses-open-access-publisher-trademark-infringement

http://www.chronicle.com/article/Publisher-Threatens-to-Sue/139243/

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/05/15/184233141/publisher-threatens-librarian-with-1-billion-lawsuit

Dear Paul Vaucher,

So what is the latest news about OMICS? Is there any international efforts to stop those people to deceive junior scientists.

I have been interested in the recent communications regarding OMICS. I was unfortunate enough to attend an OMICS-'organised' meeting some years ago. I was tempted by an e-mail inviting abstract submission for a meeting in San Francisco. My abstract was accepted as an oral presentation and I was invited to chair one of the sessions.

There were many problems associated with this meeting: it was reduced from a 3- to a 2-day meeting at short notice but there was no refund for the (unnecessary) extra night's hotel accommodation. Although it was suggested 300 'internationally-renowned' scientists would attend in reality the number was far less. There were few visible 'helpers' available at the venue with much of the running left to session chairs. I could go on - many of my comments/complaints are outlined in an e-mail I have on file that was sent to OMICS, that was never acknowledged.

The e-mails reads:

July13th 2011.

Dear Mr Akul.

I am writing to you with my concerns and comments regarding the recent OMICS Group Conference, Clinical Research, Dermatology, Ophthamolgy and Cardiology, held on 5/6 July at the San Francisco Marriott Airport Hotel.

The original invitation to submit an abstract for this meeting suggested it was to run July 4-6th. It was subsequently reduced to 5&6 July.

Response to various e-mails that I sent before this meeting for information regarding schedules etc were either very delayed or absent.

Details re: timing of talks and scheduled programming was vague.

Chairing at the sessions was very poor with chairs not controlling the time of presentations and, despite severe over-running, certain chairs asked lengthy questions at the expense of addressing those posed by members of the audience.

Many speakers seemed ill prepared for their talk (and lacked presentation skills) since a number of presentations that I attended went far past their allocated time allowance with too many ‘busy’ slides being shown.

Details regarding programme changes were unclear. As chair of one session I was advised at the last moment of an additional presentation but was unaware of one of the presentations in my session as it was not included in my copy of the programme.

According to the website there was to be a poster session and possibly trade stands. Neither appeared.

As the date of the meeting approached the OMICS website gave the impression that over 300 international scientists would attend the meeting. My estimate is that in truth the number was less than 50.

The audience numbers were embarrassingly small. My session had an audience of less than ten, mostly those presenting.

I agreed at short notice to chair a session at this meeting. At previous conferences my registration fee has been waived when accepting such duties.

Apart from these comments I should point out that I have contacted OMICS by e-mail 3 times now regarding refund of the cost of 2 night’s accommodation at the Marriott hotel (only one night was needed as the conference was reduced to 2 days). I have had no reply and no refund (see copies of relevant e-mails at end of this correspondence).

Based on the above points I am sure that you realise that I am far from impressed by this meeting and wonder if these particular experiences are typical of other conferences held by OMICS. Interestingly, this morning I received an e-mail message asking for me to submit and abstract/register for another upcoming OMICS meeting. As you can imagine I am highly unlikely to be interested in attending any future meetings organised by OMICS and would certainly not recommend them to any of my colleagues.

I would be grateful if you would arrange refund of the two night’s hotel accommodation as soon as possible and look forward to any explanation you have for what I believe to be a very poorly organised event by OMICS.

Please find copies of relevant e-mail correspondence below.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Michael Dashwood

I received an invitation from OMICS to attend a conference in Dubai next December as a speaker, they give free tickets and hotel accommodation or not

Please people, make yourself aware that predators are out there, preying on the desperate. Read the experiences above, while you might think that a "publication" in one of these predatory journals is worth the payment costs, as more of us learn about this and raise the veil, when we see a "publication" in your CV, that will but a black mark besides your name. I too have fallen and I have tried to remove the 2 publications from my CV and Research Gate credentials, but it is difficult to convince coauthors to refrain from posting. If your science is good, then it WILL be publishable in reputable journals!!

Never publish in predatory journals. Beall's List of Predatory Journals and Publishers is available online. refer to it

We submitted a paper in an OMICS journal last year. It went out for review straight away and we received some weird comments from 2 reviewers, directly in our junk emails. We didn't see this email for a couple of weeks, and we didn't address any of the comments before the deadline. Surprise, few days after the deadline has passed, we had another email saying that finally, the paper is accepted without revision, with an invoice of several hundred dollars...

http://beallslist.weebly.com/standalone-journals.html

Please refer to this list of predatory journals and publishers

https://clinicallibrarian.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/bealls-list-of-predatory-publishers

Future actions that can be taken

Beall's list has been very useful. It is however a black list that has become very difficult to keep up-to date given the number of publishers who take measures to be removed from it, including improving their policies. What we now recommend using are white lists.

Here are a few examples of white lists:

• PubMed (not a reference for the quality of the editing process)
• ISI indexing (4-5 years before appearing on the list, not accessible to all)
• OASPA membership (http://oaspa.org)
• Directory of Open Source Journals (https://doaj.org)

The advantage of such lists is that journals and publishers constantly have the pressure of meeting expectations given they can lose their affiliation if editing misconduct is reported. However, this is a yes/no approach. What is missing are clear indicators on the quality of the editing process.

As scientists, it is up to us to verify that publishers and editors are up to their task. What needs to put into place is an independent feedback center systematically collecting information on the publication process for accepted articles. This would make it possible to provide indicators on the quality of the editing policies, the reviewing process, and the editors role in publishing articles. Similar solutions are been put into place by publishers for reviewers but none seem to be proposed for the editing process. 

Dear Colleagues 

I Wonder if you give attention to Google Scholar profiles and did you trusted them and what is the possible shortage of them?

With my best regards 

Working with OMICS was indeed a painful lesson for me. I have lost two of my review papers. After i submitted the papers they just accepted those within few days. The hard part is that they even published the article and charged a high price without any notice. I tried to convince them and sent a withdrawal letter after i noticed the published article. But it didn't do any good. Moreover, they have no proper appreciation in scientific committee and they try to harass people a lot about the money issue.

I have not a big experience with OMICS, but just now one of our manuscripts was published in "Remote Sensing & GIS" of this group. Yes, I can agree with some critique of OMICS that was expressed during this discussion, for example, very weak reviewer work. I obtained review only from one reviewer, and it was very weak, very short, and simultaneously very illiterate English. Also, a payment cost ($1069) for 10-page paper (a standard size of proceeding paper) seems too high, isn't it? However, from the other side, this journal has published our manuscript very fast and in a manner very open for all potential readers of our paper - I believe this is a large plus for us and for our readers.

More generally speaking, I think that it is wrong to judge all journals belonging to only one editorial group. Probably, we should refer to each journal separately and accounting different factors of whole process - from submission of manuscript up to its publication.

Six months ago, I had a look at conferenceseries.com given they have the same graphic line as OMICS. It is indeed a derived name for OMICS conferences.

I have had some feedback from attendees of which one person was pleased with her first conference. After looking into conferenceseries.com she however resigned from the piloting committee. The conference usually takes place under the same name every few months in a different city. The conference rooms are hired over a periode of 10 days and 2-5 different conferences take place simultaneously.

There are testimonies of people mentioning empty congresses, canceled speakers, and lack of staff at the conference. However, given most talks are provided by researchers who pay to attend, some interesting and quality presentations can take place. I have no idea about the selection process for retained speakers, but do suspect that all applicants are withheld.

Has anyone reading this post had their proposal for an oral presentation refused?

Thanks for sharing this useful information

Withdrawing manuscripts

Withdrawing manuscripts after journals have accepted them is unusual and requires some form of factual evidence of scientific misconduct in the editing process. In other words, authors need proof that the publisher did not respect their stated engagements.

Most authors feel something could be wrong when they receive the acceptance letter from the publisher's staff with poor quality review, or their paper been published without the modifications requested during proof read.

My advice is the following:

Article-jacking

At this stage, I have testimonies of authors who have been requested to pay the publisher to have their article retrieved from public view. If this happens, do not pay and clearly state that you will hold the publisher liable for any consequences to your reputation given the article was published without your approval.

Congresses

I am less familiar with this process. Read the cancellation policies or ask for them. Verify what the organisers have committed themselves to. Again, if they do not respect their side, you can be entitled to a reimbursement. Getting it might be more difficult.