Dear Catherene Julie Aarthy C ,

You experienced the whole spectrum of fraudsters in the publishing world. They can be divided in roughly three categories:

Hijacked journal titles. TURCOMAT is a notorious example see for example https://www.researchgate.net/post/I-published-the-paper-in-a-Journal-indexed-by-Scopus-but-when-I-search-for-that-paper-in-Google-I-can-not-find-it-why

Journals only there to exploit their Scopus indexing. These predatory journals/publishers start to accept basically everything once they receive their Scopus indexing, and this can be seen in a suspicious increase in the number of accepted and published papers. A notorious example of this phenomenon is discussed here https://www.researchgate.net/post/Are-these-journals-indexed-by-Scopus-IJEAT-IJRTE-and-IJITEE Kalahari journals is unfortunately such an example of a predatory publisher. Just have a look at “VOLUMES 1-5, (2016-2020)” here https://kalaharijournals.com/archive-issues-216-2022.php all the titles I checked are either fake or papers published elsewhere.

Journals that start legit and are sold or taken over by a management with nothing but profit as their priority. I am afraid that European Chemical Bulletin is such an example. They accept and publish nowadays suspiciously more papers nowadays. This is often a reason for Scopus to discontinue.

How to avoid these journals:

-A very good source for all known and/or yet identified titles of hijacked journals can be found here https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-hijacked-journal-checker/

-A good (early) indicator for ‘issues’ with a particular title can be found in the comment section of SCImago see for example the comments here https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=21101016918&tip=sid

-If you google a title and the ores.su link pop-ups than this is a red flag that there are issues (either hijacked, too easy acceptance of papers, peer review that can be manipulated, already discontinued titles etc.)

-Go to Scopus sources, search for the title, and go to Scopus content coverage. If all of a sudden, the number of papers published increase (above their annual average) this is a red flag

-Avoid potential predatory journals/publishers. Just google or search here for more info about this sad phenomenon that makes so many victims all over the world. Scopus indexing is one way to avoid these fraudsters but Scopus is unfortunately not flawless. See for example: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Scopus_doing_a_good_job_in_identifying_and_dealing_with_predatory_journals

The best chance for a safe choice is:

-Subscription-based journals (no guarantee but predatory behavior is more an exception than a rule here) of Scopus indexed titles (and preferably Clarivate’s ESCI/SCIE/SSCI index as well)

-Open access journals that charge no fee, see for example here https://www.researchgate.net/post/Scientific_Journals_with_Open_Access_and_no_APC_free_charges_for_authors

-Open access/hybrid journals of known publishers like Springer, Wiley, Oxford University Press etc.

It can indeed be a mess and unfortunately it takes time and effort to choose a legit and genuine journal nowadays with so many fraudsters out there.

Best regards.

Even Im looking for the same insight.