Scam in the Academia: The Saudi Royal Institute of Business and Social Sciences (SRIBSS Scam) The title summarises the ordeal of 3 good friends who registered to attend the Saudi Royal Institute of Business and Social Sciences (SRIBSS) conference scheduled to hold from 29-31 October 2019. The organizers used names of prominent professors and experts to advertise their scam to unsuspecting public. At the end of the registration and flight book periods, these three friends have paid more than RM 14000 (US$3337). Meanwhile, the organizers claimed that over 1900 participants registered for the conference! How it happened. These friends saw an advert on a conference supposedly organised by the Saudi Royal Institute of Business and Social Sciences (SRIBSS) via social media channels. As expected, they searched the website of the organizers (http://sribss.org/) and found out the following are the board of directors of the entity- Ziyad Almalki Board Chair SRIBSS; Assistant Professor , Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Eng Imam Ahmed Operations Manager; Head of organizing team Dr. Abdullah Alfaifi; Research Education & Training Director; Assistant Professor, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Saad Alshahrani; Deputy Chair, Research Director; Assistant Professor, Head of Department of Economics, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Ahmad Alalaiwe; Research Policy Director; Assistant Professor, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Naseer Alqahtani; Director; Advisor to Executive VP Dr. Monira Alwhaibi; Co-Director of Scientific Affairs and Research Dr. Ahmed Al-Shehri; Director; Assistant Professor, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University,Al-Kharj, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Dr. Abdullah Alahmari; Research Integrity Director; Assistant Professor, King Fahad University, KSA With the names of these respected individuals, they felt all was ok. In fact, they also reviewed the event brochure (http://sribss.org/Downloads/Jeddah_6ISRMC_Brochure.pdf; a copy is also attached as the website may cease to exist after this post) and names of respected scholars enlisted as key speakers- Prof. Mahmoud Shahin Alahwal Dean, Faculty of Medicine, KING ABDULAZIZ UNIVERSITY, KSA; Dr. Hani Z. Asfour Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy, KING ABDULAZIZ UNIVERSITY, KSA; Professor John Hattie Director Melbourne Graduate School of Engineering UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE & CHAIR AITSL; Professor David Giles Dean of Sciences FLINDERS UNIVERSITY and Professor Field Rickards Dean of Education Melbourne Graduate School of Education UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE. The website also showcased pictures from the past conferences held in GCC countries such as Oman, UAE, Qatar (details here: http://sribss.org/previous-events/). The networth of the event partners- Saudi Airline and King AbdulAziz University, KSA - seems to further add credence to the search. They thought all facts looks genuine and fine. These friends submitted their unpublished paper and also got acceptance letter. They paid registration fees, and went further to pay the flight tickets through the Emirates Airline ‘agents’ (as a 30% discount on flight ticket was presumably given). They got Emirates flight booking reservations and required details to process their leave applications from the university to attend the conference....everything looks set. During this period, the organizers respond to emails within the hour through the representative- Dr Noor Hadi. Noor Hadi even noted that over 1900 participants registered for the conference and urged participants to make payments within the time to avoid disqualification. The problem started when the expected visa letters were not issued within the stipulated time. They got worried and sent emails to the usual contact, no response was received. Their hearts already beating fast, they contacted the Board of Directors and Key Speakers. Only of them responded: The key speaker- Professor John Hattie wrote (October 02, 2019): “This is a con. They have never asked me, I (and not is field rickard) am not going, and this is fourth year in a row they tried this scam.” The Chairman of the Board - Dr. Ziyad S. Almalki wrote ( (October 02, 2019): “This website and their operators are not from Saudi Arabia or even in Saudi Arabia and used Saudi identities to make everything looks real. We reported it here but can’t do anything about it out of Saudi Arabia. You need to notify all your colleagues about this scam.” At this time, is clear this is a scam! The feedback seems to suggest this scam has been ongoing for four years, and these respected personalities did not post any report online to save unsuspecting researchers from such trauma! The friends contacted another friend who checked the domain registration information for sribss.org and observed the website is registered in the United States and the owner also resides in the US. I have decided to share their experience to save other researchers from such trauma. As at now, no report online to expose these illicit activities. Infact, the organizers are already organizing another round of event for January 2020 tagged ‘Madinah 7th International Saudi Royal Multidisciplinary Conference (Madinah-7ISRMC)’ (http://sribss.org/jeddah-6isrmc/). It is hoped that this post will alert other researchers on SRIBSS SCAM. Lessons for other researchers: 1. Researchers should search for names of the conference organizers (especially the prominent persons) and contact directly to confirm the genuineness of the workshop/conference 2. Information of sites such as https://www.exordo.com/blog/9-signs-this-is-a-fake-conference/ should help further. Here are the 9 Signs that indicate a conference is fake: The conference has an overly ambitious title; The technical programme is broad. Very broad; The language on the conference website is…off (typos and grammatical errors); Renowned organisations are sponsoring a low-profile conference; The organisers’ contact details are missing, or aren’t quite right; Another conference with a suspiciously similar name already exists; The conference or its organisers have known associates; The organisers are charging higher-than-normal fees; The conference is unusually frequent 3. Buy air tickets directly from airlines. Do not allow organizers to buy on your behalf 4. Be careful if the contact person sounds too nice or responds too soon to enquiries. For now, these friends are taking necessary legal steps to seek redress. Hopefully, we can stop such fraud from expanding in our communities and especially in such areas as academia. Thanks for reading. Hope we can keep exposing these individuals and their tactics. Kind regards. Hafis Bello [email protected] *Please reshare to save others from such ordeals.*
It is unfortunate that this criminality continues without solution for years now. I heard this is the 5th year in a row. The Professors whose names tagged keep quiet when they are aware their names are being used for fraudulence. Ohhhh my God, what hell is going on!
This is terrible. You need to report to King and Crown Prince. You should also contact the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Jeddah an Riyadh...they will assist
So sorry you experienced this
@Beverly Dawn Metcalfe.
Thank you for your insights. The information needs to be shared in order to prevent others from becoming victims.
You can look up chambers of commerce on Google
They will take this very seriously
I knew that friend of mine in Indonesia got scam with this. They got acceptance letter and pay for the conference and flight tickets. And the same problems happen after the payment that the organizer can not be contacted anymore now.
I tried to search information about this conference and end up with more victims.
When I take a look their website, I know that there are a lot of typos and they took images and figures from other universities.
Be careful all.
Luftan...I will look at this and pass on colleagues. Saudi is making great strides to enhance Education
Has anyone tried to report this to any Saudi university or government
Have sent a mail to the University, expecting their reply
Which universities is it claiming?
I will chat if you know as know quite a few
Thankyou
I contacted my friends who is studying in King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah. He said that he will forward the message to his Dean. I am waiting for his reply.
Dear Drs.
First, I want to thank you all for reaching out on this matter. It shows we are all committed to finding a solution especially towards ensuring innocent victims do not fall for such again. We are not stopping at that.
The matter has been officially reported to the Fraud Unit of Malaysia Police as well as the EFCC Nigeria. We have also written the communication to the Saudi Embassy in Malaysia, today. Hopefully, we can deliver it tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I appreciate additional efforts from Dr. Rashidah, Dr. Binyami, and Dr. Ali.
I have copied everyone so as to further discuss other steps that may be taken as these guys need to be brought to justice especially since our findings indicate they have been on it for four years now!
Luckily, our efforts are yielding results. As I write to you all, the site has been totally pulled down. At least, innocent persons will not fall for their plan on the Medina 2020 conference announcement has been shutdown (imagine, they were already planning a 2020 conference when the October 2019 conference is yet to be held...guts and callousness, indeed).
Kind regards.
Hafis Bello
Luftan
I will double check as know people at King Abdulaziz...
Me and my colleagues are also victim of this scam but I have also identify the culprits who are behind this.
Soon they would be arrested and we would also share this information with KSA embassy to block their entrance in KSA in future and see legal aspects of this case to help victims.
@Muhammad Bilad Ahmad, thank you for information, how can other victims across the world equally identify the criminals behind it, bring them to just justice and seek refund? Please assist with more information
Thanks for voicing it out. I'm also a victim.
Below is my email address for further communication on the issue: [email protected].
I asked my friend in Saudi to Lodge a Complaint with the relevant authorities and has done so. Waiting for their response.
Regards.
Another scam link from same organisers, this people needs to brought to justice. This callousness.
People should be aware of this fake and scam conference link. Let save some innocent genuine researchers.
http://kssrmi.com/previous-events/
I am not sure those names above-mentioned are the culprits, but many people have been insinuating and pointing accusing fingers to Indians that they are found of anything fake conferences, fake journals etc. I hope we remember the issue of OMICS group, recently in the USA. On this scam/fake conference here, I am also a victim indirectly, where I paid for five people huge thousands of dollars. Aside from this, every day I receive junks from various Indian journals soliciting for submitting papers, whereas, it's long time I had realised most journals sending mails are fake and majority (more than 99%) are from India. In fact, my former postgrad sch. has frowned against their faculty members from publishing in any Indian journals.
Finally, is this message of scam here telling us to run away from anything that has to do with Indians?. It is becoming indicting too many times of Indians!
I think the scam was a jointly planned type. The infidels have their syndicates among Saudis.
Even the bank can't be exonerated, because it's difficult to open a corporate bank account in Saudi if you are not an Indigene. Both the bank and the police are toying with the scam and the scammers as if they don't understand the havoc this has caused to researchers all over the world.
If they are not a beneficiary, they would have arrested the owners of the account and refund the people by now.
SAUDI identity was used for the scam A-Z and the government of KSA and King AbdulAzeez University are keeping quiet.
See the scammer's bank account and you can attest to its being corporate account.
Account Details
Bank Name: Riyad Bank
Account Name: IATI United for Information Technology Company
Account Number: 152 2561 809 940
IBAN: SA16 2000 000 152 2561 809 940
There is negligence from both KSA and the keynote speakers mentioned; as this scam has been going on for years without being investigated
I got a good news from my banker now, that a part of my money was refunded into his account this morning. Kindly follow up with your bank
Sulaimon Olanrewaju Adebiyi Thanks for this. It is my belief that Saudi govt has zero tolerance for such an act. I knew they are working intelligently through the security to track those people. Meanwhile, a lot of steps have been taken by many people, and I was very sure, before this message, that something joyous gonna happen soon.
@ Tengku Fauzan, a recall of transaction form was filled in the bank. Initiate a recall from the bank where the payment was made with the assistant of security agents
Sulaimon Olanrewaju Adebiyi Are you sure the money was refunded/retrieved?. I know someone who have been to a Saudi Bank where the payment was made to verify your first information earlier, they told him no fresh update as at then, and it was last few weeks. Perhaps, investigation is still on....
Can anyone please tell me about this one.. I recently recieved an invitation for a conference in Saudia link is .... http://qasird.com/current-conference/
They have almost the same theme and same keynote speakers
and 30% discounted fare rates.
Havent submitted my paper yet just searching if its a fake or real one...
Need a feed back
@Laila. This conference looks more like the one we reported in this thread. Most likely, it is a fake conference and I honestly hope the authorities will pick this up and save innocent researchers.
It is unfortunate that this criminality continues without solution for years now. I heard this is the 5th year in a row. The Professors whose names tagged keep quiet when they are aware their names are being used for fraudulence. Ohhhh my God, what hell is going on!
@Laila, it has all attributes of the SRIBSS scam, it is fake, booking of flight is not their business, don't pay any amount to this fake, callous individuals. You will observe that no other emails except the one used for acceptance, the phone number is not reachable, all the journal listed does not know them, the conference scope is too wide and they will claim to have close to 1000 delegates across the world. Please it is fake, I was once a victim, the trauma is heavy, do away with them.
Dear I got email from this site
I look like fake anyone can confirm about this conference
http://marsmi.org/current-conference/
Shahbaz, I think this is fake. Especially because it is offering hajj participation. There is no conferences that suppose to offer hajj option. Hajj required special permit.
@Shahbaz, this a scam, the website doesn't have the essential security features, no conference proceedings of 1st to 7th edition visible anywhere, hajj and conference route are not the same. They are fraudsters. Don't be a victim please. If you contact some of those names listed, they are not aware people using their names for this fraud. These scam around religion sentiment on the rise. I was a victim last year. Please avoid them
Beware of this fraudulent confernce scam. The person doing this fraud is a Pakistani lawyer named Ali Raza, a resident of Lahore. He has opened a fake account in Bank Dubai Islamic, Kasur, Punjab, Pakistan. He is a genuine thug. He ruins name of Pakistan on the name of the holy places of Makkah and Madinah. Allah is seeing everything.
Last month he advertised MIMC-2020 conference from a fake website www.qasird.com and www.ksu.global and looted so many Muslim researchers of Nigeria, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, etc. on account of conference registration fee and ticket booking fee.
Now, he is running www.marsmi.org website and has planned to loot so many innocent Muslim researchers.
We, Pakistani researchers, have approached all law enforcing agencies. But, unfortunately no one is cooperating with us.
Can anyone please tell me about this one. I recently received an invitation for a conference in Saudia link is http://marsmi.org/current-conference/
Is it a fake or real one?
@ Mm Muhammad Muhammad, read previous comments and be guided. This is FAKE Conference. It is a scam, the website doesn't have the essential security features, no conference proceedings of 1st to 7th edition visible anywhere, hajj and conference route are not the same. Can they provide a reliable link to their conference proceedings? They are fraudsters. Don't be a victim please. If you contact some of those names listed, they are not aware people using their names for this fraud. These scam around religion sentiment on the rise. I was a victim last year. Please avoid them.
I also think that it is fake one. In accepting email they used happy Ramzan, on other hand the Arab writes Ramadhan instead of Ramzan. It seems Pakistani. it is fact that the thief leaves any sign unintentionally that he can be caught.
Nasir Ahmed Rajput Shahbaz Ahmad Mm Muhammad Muhammad MARSMI 2020 in Medinah is a fake conference. I have confirmed all the partners of this conference, King Saud University, IEEE and Daffodils University. They confirm it is suspicious. Do not be a victim of this conference. Also, help us to report the case to the Saudi Arabia cybercrime force. We have already forward our case to them, also some other cybercrime investigation agencies. If you need confirmation emails can directly contact me. Hope you haven't proceeded it.
@ Iran Naz, the conference is fake, the Organizers are fraudsters. Kindly avoid them not be a victim. I was a victim last year, my Colleague and I wasted 450USD each and they claimed a partnership with Saudi Airlines and Emirates Airline. We paid 780 USD each again with promised to accommodate us the university hostel and opportunity to perform Umurah. All end-up fake, faceless thieves. Kindly stay away. It is not real.
Thank you every one. Umer farooq dear on 17 April after read this discussion I also inquired about this conference so many things I found and confirmed that this is fake after that I also shared it on Facebook wall to be aware my friends. Thanks to Allah we protected on time.
I agree with you Sulaimon Olanrewaju Adebiyi, these criminals must be denounced in all platforms.
Here, is another fake conference scam from Mr. Ali Raza 4th Jeddah International Conference on Multidisciplinary Issues (ICMI-2021). He is still ruining the name of Pakistan and no one is there to stop him.
http://srsrmi.com/current-conference/
Zaffar Ahmed Shaikh SOME QUESTIONS BAFFLE ME: why are those guys not arrested?. They are assumed to be Pakistanis or Indians, but how come they "rob" in Saudi continuously every year when it is in fact it is very hard for the foreigners to open a current account, even not possible? How come this continues to perpetrate in Saudi Arabia where things like this are pretty difficult to do.
These people ruin the name of our country Pakistan and the two holiest places of Muslims worldwide. Unfortunately, our law enforcement agencies are entirely silent on this issue. We have approached our agencies, provided them with undeniable facts and proofs. But, all in vain. Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with this issue. The culprit named Mr. Ali Raza is answerable to Allah (SWT) for this heinous crime.
I just read your details. Thank you for posting such information. I did registration but save to pay tickets payments. So shameful. What face will they show to God ?. Dr. Noor Hadi Ali is dealing ICMI 2021.ALL is fake.
Another FAKE conference from the same thieves:
http://srsrmi.com/current-conference/
Please broadcast for people to avoid another scam
Why are these people not yet arrested? This is a big question! When we all identify a problem preying on society, but they operate freely without being checked, very unfortunate.
@ Iqra Ramzan Please they are fraudsters, stop transacting with them. Inform your bank that you want to stop the transaction, so that they can red flag the account for interpol towards process of refund.
Shocking and emphasizes the importance of validating conferences and checking credentials of organizers, prior to committing time and funds to attend. Lots of scammers abound, particularly in the age of Covid 19!
Kamoru A. Adedokun I believe he has a connection since he is doing this job for the past few years continuously.
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