Hijacked journal: a sad example of scientific misconduct

Hijacked journal: a sad example of scientific misconduct

 

Although the first examples of hijacked journals are found round 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_hijacking ) the phenomenon of hijacked journals is relatively new. It basically boils down to a type of fraud where imposters ‘clone’ a journal(s) (website) and pretends to be the (open access) version of a legit and genuine journal.

 

One of the first websites that listed identified examples of hijacked journals https://beallslist.net/hijacked-journals/ described the phenomenon as “Sometimes someone will create a counterfeit website that pretends to be the website of a legitimate scholarly journal. The website creators then solicit manuscript submissions for the hijacked version of the journal, pocketing the money. In some cases, the legitimate versions of the journals are only published in print form, and they may not have websites.”

 

Nowadays there is an excellent source with (yet) identified examples of hijacked journals: The Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker (https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-hijacked-journal-checker/).





The fraudsters use one of the following 'tactics':

-They buy a (small) journal that is nicely indexed in for example Scopus and as soon as possible they abuse this indexing to lure victims to submit their manuscripts. By publishing basically everything (not only low quality papers but also pretty good papers totally out of scope of the journal, etc.)
-They simply copy a (small) journal that only publish in print (sometimes already for decades) and pretend to be the open access version of this journal
-They create an open access journal version of a journal that exclusively publish in for example Chinese and pretend to be the English version of this journal. See for an example https://www.researchgate.net/post/International_Journal_of_Pharmaceutical_Research_or_Journal_of_International_Pharmaceutical_Research_a_sad_story_of_deception
-They create an open access journal version of a highly specialised journal and present themselves as a journal with a much broader scope. See for example https://www.researchgate.net/post/As_I_browsed_through_the_internet_I_found_two_journals_with_the_same_ISSN_Is_it_possible_that_one_of_these_is_being_hijacked
As said although the first examples of hijacked journals already originate from 2012, the real 'explosion' of this phenomenon started when open access publishing really started. The 'logic' behind it is that this publishing option gave fraudsters the opportunity to charge a fee. 

As indicated as one of the 'tactics', let say you buy a small journal for 50.000 euro and you publish 500 papers for 400 euro each then you 'earn' a substantial amount of money with a (unfair) high profit even when the Scopus indexing stops after little bit more than a year.

I asked ChatGPT about 'it's' thought about "hijacked journals", this is the response:

"Hijacked journals" are a serious problem in the academic publishing world. These are fraudulent journals that mimic legitimate, reputable journals by using similar names, websites, and ISSNs to deceive researchers into submitting papers and paying fees.

Why It's a Problem:

  1. Scams Researchers – Authors may believe they are publishing in a respected journal, but their work ends up in a predatory or fake journal.
  2. Hurts Academic Integrity – It undermines trust in scholarly publishing and contributes to the spread of poor-quality or fraudulent research.
  3. Financial Exploitation – Researchers often pay publication fees (APCs) without receiving real peer review or proper indexing.
  4. Confusion in Citations – Some fake journals use ISSNs that belong to real journals, making it harder to distinguish legitimate research from fraudulent publications.

How to Avoid Them:

  • Check the official website of the real journal through the publisher’s domain.
  • Verify ISSNs through official databases like ISSN.org.
  • Look up the journal on DOAJ, Scopus, or Web of Science to confirm legitimacy.
  • Be cautious if a journal suddenly asks for unexpected fees or has an unusually fast peer-review process.

Would you like help identifying a specific journal? 


...well by itself a pretty good response. However, the thing is that for example the advise how to avoid them states "Look up the journal on DOAJ, Scopus, or Web of Science to confirm legitimacy." is one of the problems since the fraudster use journal titles that are in fact indexed in these indices/databases...

This approach works with:

DOAJ, click on the 'website' button and check the website (in most cases it will refer to the original/legit) one) 

Scopus, go to the corresponding SCImago link and click on 'homepage' (in most cases it will refer to the original/legit) one

Web of Science, if you have registered (for free) you can click further once you found the journal title of interest (in most cases it will mention a website that refer to the original/legit one)


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