Dear M. Hesam Shahrajabian,

It all depends on who you are dealing with. Is this a predatory journal/publisher then it will be hard.

If they are serious (and really indexed) then informing Scopus, DOAJ etc. will help, they can loose their indexing.

I am afraid there is no central organization dealing with this in total.

Best regards.

PS. Would be quite curious to know which journal/publisher you talk about and starting the discussion about this particular journal (or publisher) here on RG can start at least some awareness (and warning).

Dear M. Hesam Shahrajabian

Before upload your MS to any journals, you should first search about the impact factors and their recorded and presented in the different official websites like:

ISI journals ( Thompson and Reuters ) exist in this link http://mjl.clarivate.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlsearch.cgi?PC=K, while SCOPUS journals exist in Scimago (https://www.scimagojr.com/) by the way you can search by the name of journals and prevent overlapping between journal's name use ISSN of the journals.

Good luck

Bonjour

Prière vérifier sur le site web ci dessous si ce journal a un numéro ISSN.

https://www.issn.org/fr/bienvenue-sur-le-nouveau-site-internet-de-lissn/

Prière vérifier si ce journal est sur la liste de ISI-THOMSON ( possède environ 13000 journaux); ou la liste SCOPUS (possède environ 30000 journaux). Ces deux bases de données sont les plus reconnues.

Dear Respected Scholars. Thanks a lot for information and guidance. Regards.

M. Hesam Shahrajabian

good luck and with pleasure.

Dear M. Hesam Shahrajabian,

It all depends on who you are dealing with. Is this a predatory journal/publisher then it will be hard.

If they are serious (and really indexed) then informing Scopus, DOAJ etc. will help, they can loose their indexing.

I am afraid there is no central organization dealing with this in total.

Best regards.

PS. Would be quite curious to know which journal/publisher you talk about and starting the discussion about this particular journal (or publisher) here on RG can start at least some awareness (and warning).

Je suis entièrement d'accord avec Dr. Rob Keller.

Il faut nous donner juste numero ISSN du journal.

Dear Mr. Rob Keller, Thanks a lot for comment and important points. I have sent another email to the editor to give back the money, if he does not want to publish two articles (As the money belong to Chinese Education Budget and System, however honesty, especially in the case of science, knowledge is more important than everything). Unfortunately, his behavior is not professional and even his reply towards me and my colleague who is a Chinese scholar is very impolite, aggressive, and he did blame us for bullying when we asked him to withdraw our articles and give back the money (I have never experienced this kinds of behavior from any Editor nor journals). I have sent him (to his three emails) more than 10 emails in recent 10 days because I wanted to solve the problem peacefully, but he has not replied yet and he simply ignore the messages. I have also found the telephone and email address of Embassy of Nigeria and I will inform him as well. Today is Friday (8th May), I will put all information and documents related to him and his journal with his photo and other certificated on Sunday, (I have also saved all his conservation). I have a lot to say about him and his journal and I have enough proofs and documents about him. I will inform on my page and even in this post on Monday, and I try to upload all documents in here. My goal is more TRUTH and HONESTY than money, and I am still seeking for an academic way on the basis of rules to solve our problems. Thanks a lot again. Stay Safe and Stay Blessed. Warmest Regards

Merci pour les éclaircissements.

Bon courage.

Il y a 31971 revues SCOPUS. Vous avez le choix pour choisir un journal et publier

Thanks a lot. I know those websites very well, Pubmed, Scopus, Science Direct, CAB abstract, Web of science, Wiley Online Library, Taylor and Francis, De Gruyter and other suggested journals which will be introduced by education systems every year in different countries. However, unfortunately, some introduced journals in some countries are not valid in other countries, for examples some journals in Africa which do not have high standards and they are valid in East of Asia unlike Europe, Russia, West of Asia and India. It should be reported to ministry of education of those countries to be double-checked and evaluate again, Maybe the evaluation system should be twice per year than once per year to put those journals in BLACK LIST. All information and data base are clear in these days. Dear Sir, please, write in English, as my post and question was written in English language (Not in any other Languages). Thanks. Stay Safe and blessed.

Journal: TROPICAL JOURNAL OF PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH (Official Journal of Pharmacotherapy Group)

ISSN: 1596-5996 (P); 1596-9827 (e)

Website: https://www.tjpr.org/home/

Editor in Chief: Mr. Augustinve O Okhamafe (In the journal webpage, he introduces himself as Professor)

([email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected])

(Tel: (+234) 0708 315 1651)

(Research Gate : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Augustine_Okhamafe)

(His personal page: http://okhamafe.faithweb.com/)

(Department of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Bening, Benin City, Nigeria)

(Tel: +234-08022905981, +234-52-602767 (home), +234-803-7269910 (GSM), Fax: +234-52-602370)

(In his emails, he always focus on God bless and in his personal page he says: You are welcome, Jesus Love You)

Editor: Mr. Patrick O Erah (In the journal webpage, he introduces himself as Professor)

([email protected]) (Tel: (+234) 0805 526 3622)

(Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Patrick_Erah3)

1. We did select and pay FAST Track, but when we did send them emails, they first consider our articles as NORMAL-Track manuscript (Source: Thu, Mar 28, 2019).

2. After, we ask them several times, about English language editing, they did add this on their website: Authors who wish to have their manuscripts reviewed by a company that specializes in medical editing and proofreading prior to journal submission, should send their documents to MedScience Editors (http://www.medscienceeditors.com), BioScience Writers (www.biosciencewriters.com) for fast personalized editing services. (There was nothing like this on the website)

3. The first manuscript (the one that I was the first author) was accepted on Tue, Aug 20, 2019 (I did corrections and revisions several times), it was supposed to be published in December 2019.

[[IMPORTANT POINT: There was nothing on Instruction for authors that English Editing Certificate MUST be provided after ACCEPTANCE, SENDING INVOICE and PAYMENT]]

[[IMPORTANT POINT: THEY ACCEPT ALL ARTICLES, BOTH NORMAL-TRACK AND FAST TRACK AND THEY SEND INOVICE AND AFTER PAYMENT AND WHEN THEY RECEIVE MONEY, THEY ASK FOR CORRECTIONS, PLAGIARISM and etc, I emphasis that AFTER RECEIVING MONEY, unlike other Journals]]

4. The second article (The article which belong to my Chinese Colleague was accepted on Sat, Sep 28, 2019)

Payment Information:

1) First article (Manuscript ID: 20160362) (530 USD) (The article was paid: 2019-08-20)(Fast Track Publication) (Receiving Invoice: August 20, 2019)

(First Revision: 20-12-2019; Second Revision: 09-01-2020 and other revisions were sent directly to the email address of editors as they did claim that)

2) Second article (Manuscript ID: 20160820) (530 USD) (The article was paid 2019-11-01)(Receiving Invoice: October 31, 2019)

(First Revision: 20-12-2019; Second Revision: 10-01-2020; Third Revision: 18-0-2020, and other revisions were sent directly to the email address of editors as they claim that)

[[On the basis of Journal s Rules No money should be charged for Processing and it was not mentioned and if it was mentioned like this I would never waste time, money and articles in that journal.]]

About my article, the editor did accept receiving money when I did send the certificates to him (The certificates of payment in Banks in China are mostly in Chinese language, except the address that we do/did type in English language, as Chinese language is official language in China), but he did deny receiving money from my colleaque for several months even if we did send him several proofs and more than 20 emails, and we become surprise that we did/do not face this situation before as we did publish in many journals and conferences in different parts of the world)

5. This is the editor reply on Thu, Oct 31, 2019, after several emails and informing him many times (((The invoice is attached here. With regard to manuscript 20160736, we have not received the payment. If you have made the payment, please send to us the evidence of bank payment as an email attachment or acknowledgement email from 2Checkout for online payment (that shows the payment date and the name of the remitter), and/or the mail we sent to you acknowledging receipt of payment. All payment evidence should be in English, not in any other language. Thank you for your interest in TJPR, and God bless! )))

6. Again, he did deny receiving publication fee from my colleague, we did pay the same amount of money, from the SAME bank with the SAME procedure and even the staff in the bank was the SAME. So, interestingly, he did receive my payment, but not my workmate????? ((( My apologies for the delay in responding. We confirm receipt of payment of your publication charge for manuscript 20160736, and hope to send you the review documents within 3 weeks. Please send a reminder to us if you do not hear from us within this period. However, we cannot confirm payment for manuscript 20160820 because the name of the remitter shown in the bank transaction document you sent is in Chinese characters. Send us the name of the remitter in English alphabet and the actual date of remittance. God bless! Thank you for your interest in TJPR, and God bless! )))

7. Finally, He did ACCEPT receiving the publication fee on Sun, Nov 17, 2019 with this message after several emails from me: (((My apologies for the delay in responding. We confirm receipt of payment of your publication charge, and hope to send you the review documents within 3 weeks. Please send a reminder to us if you do not hear from us within this period. Thank you for your interest in TJPR, and God bless! ))))

8. He did accept the second article on mine on Dec 9, 2019, but I did feel fear and I was anxious about the journal, editor and payment, because his behavior and words were strange, and he did change his words, so I did decide to wait for publication of my first article and then see what will happen for the second one.

9. On Tue, Jan 21, 2020, The editors did become ANGRY on my email when I asked them for clarification and they told me: ((Since you have asked for a refund, we can only do so (partially) for the first manuscript for which we have confirmed payment. Withdrawal of a manuscript after the review process has been concluded, acceptance offered, and review documents sent to the authors, attracts a surcharge of 70% of the publication charge to cover the costs of processing the manuscript up to that stage. In that case, you are entitled to 30% of the publication charge. Therefore, send to us the following details to enable us remit the funds to you by bank transfer:

1. Your account name and address

2. Your bank name and address

3. Swift code of your bank

4. Your bank account no. (IBAN)

With regard to the second manuscript, a refund of 50% will be given only when a clear valid transaction document for the payment is received and the payment is confirmed by us.

God bless!))

10. On Thu, Feb 27, 2020, I did receive two email from Mr. Patrick Om Erah (([email protected])), who did send me two emails which belong to another article and he did say in the second email: Dear Hseam, I sincerely apologize for the email I wrongly sent to you. I have resent it to the correct person, God bless.

[It was an indirect message that this happens for all authors which is not LOGIC at all]

11. On Thus, Mar 5, 2020, after again and again they deny receiving payment, I did receive this email from them ((Too many attachments!. Just simply send to us the payment document for each of the two manuscripts, stating manuscript no, manuscript title, and the first author name.

If you have made the payment, please send to us the evidence of bank payment as an email attachment or acknowledgement email from 2Checkout for online payment (that shows the payment date and the name of the remitter), and/or the mail we sent to you acknowledging receipt of payment. All payment evidence should be in English, not in any other language. Thank you for your interest in TJPR, and God bless!)))

12. On Mar 18, 2020, I did receive another email, which send me more and more corrections and instructions, and again they did ask do not tamper with editors, but I did just ask questions about my submitted articles and 1060 USD that I did pay.

13. Again on Mar 18, 2020, I did receive this message:

((We offered you only provisional acceptance, not full acceptance since your was basically ok and that the required revisions can be effected by you. TJPR policy is that unless a manuscript is technically deficient, authors should be given an opportunity to revise their manuscript. Most manuscripts are provisionally accepted if they fall into this category, and you are the only author (out of several thousands) who has complained about this.

If you are not satisfied with this, send us your bank details so we can refund 40% of your publication charge (less our bank charges). We are no longer willing to condone your persistent disputing. God bless! ))

14. On Fri, Apr 10, 2020. They did send us this email, after we ask them to give back our money if they do not want follow their promises and they do not change their words in every single emails:

((We did not send you a letter of acceptance but a notification of provisional acceptance where we stressed that issue of a letter of full acceptance is conditional on payment of the publication charge and returning to us a satisfactorily revised manuscript. Every one of our previous authors always returns to us a satisfactorily revised manuscript. No journal worth its name publishes a poorly revised manuscript. Please comply with our editorial instructions and return to us a satisfactorily revised manuscript and the manuscript will be published in the next available issue of TJPR. God bless! ))

15. On Tye Apr 21, I did receive email from them in very bad language after I asked them to withdraw our articles and give back our payment (1060 USD), they did blame me that I did tamper with editors and they did accuse me with bullying, while I just asked to withdraw our articles and our payment 1060 USD (Even we authors accept to give them 30% of publication fee, maybe they need that money for their routine life)

16. After 21 Apr, 2020, I have sent them more than 30 emails and even I told them I will inform other researchers, scholars on Research gate, also the embassy of Nigeria in both Iran and China and I will also inform SCOPUS, DOAJ and other organizations if they do not withdraw our articles, they have not replied us yet.

My questions:

I) My question, if the articles need English editing, why do not they inform authors before accepting, sending invoice and receiving money from author(S), why the editors do that after receiving money (Publication Payment) which is against the rules and procedures of other journals??? Why do not they show the percentage of plagiarism and the standard of the journal before submitting like other journals???

II) Why do editors first DENY receive the payment, and then they approve and again they deny and again they approve???Especially for the articles that authors send payment from the same bank, same city, same country, with the same documents and even Bank s staffs???

III) Why there was not any English language specialist/agency and after the time I did ask them, they do it by themselves and I may also pay for that, they did deny and they introduce some website in their Journal s website?? (There was not any information about it before)(Do they do experiment on authors and then they learn and after that they add information on their websites??)

IV) How can a person TRUST in the editors that they change their words frequently and every day they say something NEW?? How can we trust and we pay for English Editing and give them and they themselves again deny receiving money like their previous emails and information?? Do people who pretend that they believe in God, tell lies and change their words, especially when they call themselves Professor??

V) Why did they change their words and behaviors, when I did ask them for first publish of those accepted and paid articles and then we pay for our articles?? They accused me for bullying??

VI) Why they did not send me any plagiarism report and they told me check the website, but after checking pages of myself and my workmate, we did not find any plagiarism report, which shows that the Editors do not have the software or maybe they can not work with that. I have asked them several times to send plagiarism forums to me again, but they did refuse to that.

VII) Why do they REJECT, the paper that they did send acceptance file before in two emails when I did ask them to publish these two articles first and they we should focus on another article (I did refuse to pay any money to them anymore) (One email on Fri, Jan 24, 2020)

VIII) Why do they first tell us that they receive payment of two manuscript, but when they themselves tell us that give your card number so we send back the money, they did deny again the payment of Chinese scholar?? Is it just because of MONEY that they tell lies and they have hypocritical behaviors?? Why do they become angry when the authors ask them for clarification and thread them with impolite words which is not suitable for a so-called Professor??

IX) Why do they want to give back just 30% of publication charge, when they do not want to publish accepted articles? And also there is no RULE like this in the instruction for authors from the beginning so those who want to send articles to this journal become familiar with these strange barbaric rules??

X) Why do they want to reduce 70% of payment and pay back just 30% when they did not mentioned that before? Did they think that we are FAO or WHO and we are supposed to give our money to them? Why do not they give back the money when we did give the bank card number and other information? Why did not they reply us any more and they did not withdraw our articles from their journal after we did request them for more than 30 times?

XI) In 2020, they have increased publication cost, when they do not follow their promises and they do not publish articles? Is this a scientific journal or one organization to earn money from different people, especially some Chinese and some middle eastern who publish their articles there??

Mr. Augustinve O Okhamafe and Mr. Patrick O Erah . In next step (In next working days, I will inform the ambassadors of Nigeria and also their universities. If I find any emails addresses, I will be happy happy to inform related scientific organizations like SCOPUS, and etc. Regards.

Dear M. Hesam Shahrajabian ,

This is disturbing. You did your ‘homework’ in selecting a proper journal since the “Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research” seems to really have the claimed indexing:

-in Scopus is real (according to list October 2019 still active).

-and a legit impact factor (0.439)

-and a DOAJ membership that is still active

In other words indeed you would expect a genuine journal with legit practices.

You addressed a lot of issues but the following things are clear:

-In the author guidelines https://www.tjpr.org/home/pages.php?cmd=Guidelines they state clearly “Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the author(s) will be required to pay a publication charge”. In other words once you’ve payed they should publish (and not come up with unclear matters like a provisional acceptance and unclear demands required before a final acceptance will come).

-I checked the payment info and it look pretty vague to me. Additional cost are charged for using a credit card and how these extra costs needs to be handled in some other way or something like that. Rather complex and somewhat misleading (a charge mentioned of 600 USD for fast track then should be 640 USD when using a credit card or at least with the remark ‘except additional costs related to payment handling’).

-Only one thing on behalf of this journal. Retracting a manuscript costs money. Basically all journals state that retraction after the review process and acceptance letter means you are charged some amount since they’ve made costs and so on. However they should mention this somewhere (how much they will charge and how much in terms of % you are entitled to receive back if you retract an already published paper for example).

I understand the emotions and frustrations along the way, but I think you should focus on one point basically: what kind of acceptance letter did you receive and how transparent was their information that after payment you still can expect all sorts of demands (English editing certificate, proving absence of plagiarism, ‘proper’ revisions that need to be made etc.). Most of what happened after this would have been more or less okay since they can demand all sorts of things as long as you didn’t payed anything. It is a ‘normal’ procedure that a paper when it is accepted for publication it will be published…period (of course only after you payed the charges after such an acceptance letter).

If this is a fair reflection of what happened then this could be the message of a letter of concern/complaint to the people behind Scopus, DOAJ etc.

Best regards.

Dear Mr. Rob Keller. Greetings Sir. Unfortunately, more than 8 years ago, this story was happened for two of friends of mine in Iran and another friend in Turkey who did submit their article in AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BIOTECHNOLOGY, which was also in Africa and at that time it was SCI, and after several reporting by different scholars, researchers and students, they did remove it from valid journal lists. Interestingly, same story for different people at different times. I have afraid this behavior become pandemic or epidemic. Regards.

I have invited and emailed those guys in advance about my post with more than 10 emails. My proofs, emails and everything is ready. This dishonesty and this behavior is not appropriate for a normal person let alone a person who call himself a Professor. Of course, I will inform all organizations, researchers and scholars and of course Chinese Ministry of Education, universities and embassy of that country about this behavior and I am sure this journal will be in BLACK LIST JOURNAL. The only or maybe first task of a researcher and a scientist regardless of skin color, religion and nationality MUST be honesty and truth. I will report and try to solve my problems as I have enough proofs and recordings and I have enough time. Interestingly, they do not even reply emails after 30 times and day by day, the have become more aggressive in their emails. We are not only confused but also surprised because of this cheating behavior, but I do not stop praying for them. Stay Safe and Stay Blessed. Best Regards.

This story is quite unfortunate

Very unfortunate. I'll advice you contact the Ministry of Education as well, as it will prevent others especially those in academics in Nigeria from falling for same.

you must contact the publisher provide them with bank invoice and screenshots of the evidence.

also refer to this article

Article Dealing with editorial misconduct