Almost as often as invitations to submit manuscripts to predatory journals, I receive invitations to attend predatory meetings, and you probably receive them as well. So what exactly are predatory meetings, and how do you know whether a meeting is real or organized by some bogus organization?
Predatory meetings and conferences
Predatory meetings are organized by companies that have no interest in science but are just after your money. These companies, primarily located in India, make money from the registration fee and the hotel packages they sell. They generate a conference website and put names of speakers on their website, which will make them look trustworthy. However, most of these speakers have not agreed to speak at these conferences, but their photos and biosketches are posted on the site anyway. Once you arrive at the meeting, the promised reputable speakers are not there, the interesting sessions announced on the website are not taking place, there are few conference attendants, and the overall organization is terrible. In some cases, once you arrive, you find out that there is no conference at all and no hotel has been booked, leaving you stranded. Especially inexperienced researchers fall prey to these scams.
Because predatory meetings currently outnumber legitimate scientific meetings, you need to think and check before registering. Unfortunately, Beall’s list of Predatory Conferences has been discontinued (he was sued by one of the predatory conference organizers, not sure if that is the reason), and I have not found a replacement list yet. So below is a list of points to check.
How can you tell a predatory meeting from a legitimate one?
- The topic of the conference you are invited to has little to do with your expertise
- The website of the meeting lacks a contact email, telephone number, or address. Or if an email address is posted it is a free email account (yahoo, gmail, etc.)
- The meeting is not announced on the website of the professional society in your field
- The meeting is not organized by a well-known institute or professional society
- It is difficult to find the actual location of the conference on the website
- When you click on sample abstracts, they have nothing to do with the conference topic
- You received an invitation to be a speaker at the conference just weeks or a few months before the convention
- The session topics appear to be too generic or not relevant to the conference
- The website’s wording appears AI generated, generic, or irrelevant
- You and your colleagues have not been to previous meetings by this organization before
- They promise publication of your manuscript
- Multiple conferences on entirely unrelated topics are organized at the same time at the same place?
- If review or committee members are named on the website, check whether these people are actually working in your field
- If your abstract is accepted quickly after submission (within hours or days) no committee is actually reviewing the abstracts. You can check the review process by submitting a bogus abstract, something Christoph Bartneck did for a nuclear physics meeting, and his abstract was accepted within 3 hours…
For further information about predatory conferences you may want to read this systematic review from 2022.
(Image by PeakPx)
Companies that organize predatory meetings:
- Allied Academies – see a.o. here for a report on their fraudulent meetings
- Archives of Applied Medicine -they organize `Global conferences` on every subject -their website: conferences.aoamj.org
- Auragen Group
- Biocore Conferences
- BIT Congress – see some of the reviews on trustpilot
- BIT Life Sciences
- Clerisy Conferences
- Coalesce Research Group / Coalesce Conferences
- Conference Era (a.o. WCBBS)
- Conference Series – see some of the reviews on trustpilot
- EuroSciCon
- Event Series
- Gavin Conferences
- Inovine Conferences
- International Society for Engineers and Researchers (ISER)
- Life Science Events
- Magnus Group
- Meetings International
- Moment Era
- mScholar Conferences
- OLC International
- OMICS International
- Outlook Conferences
- Pride Conferences
- PSC Conference
- Pulsus Group
- Scholars Conferences / Scholars International
- Scientific Cognizance
- Scientific Federation
- Scientific Meditech
- Scientific Serve
- Scientific Tree Group
- WASET
- World Education Day (at: worldeduday.org)
- World Research Forum for Engineers and Researchers (WRFER)
Note: this is not a complete list!!
Please let me know if you spot any others
i have just been to a PULSUS conference meeting in Dubai. I knew the minute i walked in that it is a predetory conferene.
I will add that the website for one of the listed predatory conference organizers, Coalesce Conferences, has been blocked by my university as a phishing website, which I discovered when I tried to go to the conference website page to see how many of the red flags they checked off.
What about Pride conference? Are they predatory?
I’m wondering about the same company. Checked the organizing committee, seemed adequate for Oncology-2022 conference that I am invited to. anybody has any experience with Pride Conference Organizer? Thank you!
It’s clearly fake. If you see some big names on the organizing committee, they are unlikely to be aware that their name is being used this way. The prestigious London address is fake too (no such company is registered at that address).
One type of Coalesce Conference got my LinkedIn account in order to pursue me to enjoy the meeting. Predatory organizers have gone much far as criminal in Brazil. That’s shamed.
Obs.: I am Brazilian, so the comparison is realistic, not xenophobic.
Thank you for sharing this information! I was looking for a conference from Coalesce Research Group / Coalesce Conferences and it looked weird. I found it on this search site for conferences: https://10times.com/medical-pharma which looks like filled with these kinds of fake events.
I registered to a Coalescence Group wbinar. It hasn’t yet happened. Anyone knows if I will get refunded if I cancel my assistance? It says it has to be three days prior to the webinar and it is but at this point I don’t trust anything.
Auragen group scientific guild and Scientific federation are the biggest scams now with conferences and webinars
https://www.auragengroup.com/
#auragenwebinarsscam #auragenpredatoryconference #auragenpredatorywebinars
https://www.scientificfederation.com/
#scientificfederationscam #scientificfederationpredatoryconferences
Auragen group is a recent spammer and predatory company started in Hyderabad. If you are free call at +91 9989 661 232., they are ready to initiate their scam over phone itself, by the name called Mr. Sai Kiran Olipilli, who is just a graduate and spamming the researchers.
#Fake Auragen #spammer Auragen # predatory Auragen
https://www.auragengroup.com/
Hello David,
Auragen Group is committed to providing stellar services only. If you have experienced a service anything less than best from us, please reach out to us and we will provide a full- refund. If you haven’t used our services, we still wish you all the success moving forward in your career and life.
Bye for now!
-Auragen Group
Magnus Group is a Profit Organisation based in Hyderabad, India. Ranjith Kumar is managing Director of Magnus Group. you can find its location in google (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Magnus+Group/@17.427922,78.450011,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x3352021be53e22d6?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwigw9D72e7lAhURknAKHcUQDr4Q_BIwE3oECBAQCA).
Its completely a fake Organisation sending invitations with fake names. You will never see the person who contacted you in email at onsite, you will find only the following persons at every conference Jyothi, Sravya, Navya, Hari Prasad, Laxmi, Alekya.
MG is the Dark Side of Predatory Conferences, Decreasing the quality of Scientific Events
My name is smith and i received an irrelevant invitation to my research, from OLC International to join a conference, when i submitted a fake abstract it is accepted with in half an hour and received an email from them to pay the registration fee, how the fuckers are spamming researchers you can analyze now, we can contact them at +91 7799901270.
which is from India i hope, on what basis the fake abstract has been accepted still i wonder.
Fake organization, Spammer OLC International, Predatory OLC International
https://www.olcinternational.com/
Auragen group is fully committed to provide a platform to young and seasoned researchers to present their work and build network across the world.
We are based in Hyderabad, India and with global office located in Edison, NJ USA. Sai Kiran is our managing partner based in Hyderabad and we are operated by practicing doctors and researchers based in the United States. Our prior and upcoming projects can be located in our website.
As some members here have mentioned, we apologize for the aggressive approach to reach the target audience. If you received an email from us not relevant to your current work, please approach us and we will notify you when we have an upcoming relevant opportunity.
We are a For-profit organization so a minimal fee is charged to cover our expenses. We have provided free webinars upon request to several clients before and you can also request for a fee-waiver if you are interested in any upcoming webinars.
Please check and register for our upcoming in-person webinar on Nanotechnology in MA, USA.
https://www.auragengroup.com
Please refrain from defaming our organization’s name with baseless allegations.
We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
-Auragen Group
I found this a while ago – an unintentionally useful compendium of predatory conference companies. According to the comments in the blog, of people who have been contacted by these events, everything seems to indicate that they are using scientists as useful idiots for them to make money in the organization of bad quality events to defraud people. Why researcher need to pay a minimal fee if they organize only webinars? Its unethical, how a just graduated person can make researchers fools, I am wondering now, I am going to file a case on this. Does the refund saves their organization from predatory, Hilarious answer given by #spamauragen, this indicates their fake organization standards. I am sure #scamauragen will face a law suit soon to stop deceptive practices. Don’t make the costly mistake of being fooled by fake conference organizers.
Beware of Auragen scam. Dubious, fake or eventually predatory Conferences, its just another version of #OMICSpredatory, #Scientificfederationscam
since recently I’ve gotten E-Mail-invitation for nanotechnology event, but actually I am an anthropologist and they referred my paper which is 12 years back. So I treated it as spam and I infer this must be a mass mailing to people whom they have not bothered to assess, there is nothing in the website which looks like predatory website absolutely.
Just to be clear: Auragen Group is not a serious organization, it certainly belong to the “predatory” category.
Auragengroupscam Predatory auragen group
i have received an invitation from surgery where the website looks awful and no speaker details nothing, when i asked for the attendees list in return they are asking me to pay registration fee as they do not have much time for the event.
Auragen is not a serious organization, my university already blocked their emails
https://www.auragengroup.com/surgtech-2022/
can anyone believe this fraud and scam? by observing recent blogs about this Auragen Indian company scam i can not go further for scamming webinars, please be aware everyone- Auragengroupfake, auragengroupspam, auragengrouppredatory
I received an invitation to be a plenary speaker at the European Public Health Webinar 2022 https://publichealth.scientificmeditech.com/ in March this year. It came on the basis of a recent publication in the very journal. However, it is organised by scientificmeditech and I just can’t seem to find reassuring information about this conference in my searches.
Recently i have attended Auragen Nanotechnology Webinar, the worst virtual meeting that i attend in my life time., with very few people and organizers are unable to show their faces during the virtual meeting if they are genuine. i was not aware of this scam and paid 249 USD for this, soon i will give a complaint in consumer protection office to receive back my amount.
Later the meeting i have seen many news in the internet about this fake organization Auragen., dont attend these type of fake events, Auragen group is completely bogus and predatory organization.
Thank you, this page is helpful.
But the Auragen predatory is giving spam and useless comments for each and every post with the author name, so kindly EV science consultant, please remove them and make the researchers read the original comments by the attendees and aware of their fraud.
Auragenspam, Auragenconferencespredatory, Auragenconferences, auragenwebinars, auragenscam
Hello EV Scientific Consultant,
We strictly want you to understand that there are competing companies who say we are fake and our organization is fake, they also follow the same procedures to organize conferences, they use author names and put comments not relevant to us, The names of the authors mentioned here are the first time we see their names and we confidently assure you that we have no prior collaboration with them and they have not used our services, we have given opportunities to so many speakers who are really not able to attend the conferences
Here, few people with fake author names ask our company why we charge, but even they do the same to arrange the lectures
There are so many association conferences that charge a small fee to attend events, they need to understand that attending a conference is completely a speaker’s right, if they don’t like the services, they will email us directly but they won’t waste their precious time here putting comments and checking again and again
If EV Science Consultant is a genuine website, please put appropriate verification to authenticate people commenting here
It’s our organization reputation, if you don’t remove comments from those who spread negative about our organization, we will definitely take legal action.
Thank you
We are conducting conferences under the supervision of practicing doctors, if anyone have any issues, you can directly email us.
Please do not listen to those fake companies and fake people who do not have courage to display their original names
after reading all the comments being a researcher….
what a sarcastic post from predatory organization, who cares if the bogus organization takes legal action, rather than refunding the disappointed researchers close the bogus and spam company, you are earning money by spamming researchers, let the world knows about auragen predatory webinars. Take legal actions on all the bloggers if you have courage. OMICS has paid billion dollar law suit, be ready for it as you are responding to each researcher post and commenting as researchers are fake.
it s a helpful website for many researchers to not fall under auragengroup Scam.
Dear Smith C,
We are confident that we do not have any previous collaborations with you
Please do not spread false news if you haven’t experienced our service
We have clearly mentioned that it is a speaker’s right to choose a conference to attend
We didn’t mention that researchers are fake but we mentioned that people utilizing speakers names and spreading false news about us
Also we mentioned that people blogging or commenting here are with their fake names
And finally we have mentioned that we are conducting conferences under the supervision of practicing doctors
As far as we didn’t receive any complaints from our attendees
Thanks
🙏
I received information from Meetings International that were complementary and specific to my expertise. However, I continued to ask questions and the emails/Linked In contacts that began frequently diminished to nothing and my questions and emails were never responded to. I was so gratified to find your site through my online research into this company and did, in fact find them listed as fraudulent. My suggestion is as old as the hills; “If it seems too good to be true…it IS!” check as thoroughly as you can and do not be taken in by compliments, and by all means DO NOT submit your credit card information or any currency exchange!! They also contacted me days before the ‘supposed’ “Webinar/Conference” and I could not find out any information about this conference online!
ADDENDUM TO ABOVE COMMENT:
Just to reinforce my comment regarding Meetings International, after not receiving any correspondence from several emails, I received a message via Linked In stating the following; (the person who is signified as the ‘Worldwide Program/Conference Manager’ for Meetings International is the name at the top of the message that was cut-and-pasted verbatim here)
Stella Merina 12:22 AM
The experts’ interview needs to be filled after the completion of the webinar. Kindly submit your abstract to our email address (stellamerina@gmail.com). We will send you the acceptance letter within 48hrs. The registration fee is 199 Euro for the webinar.
Their “Webinar” from Berlin is supposedly on March 24th, 2022 (tomorrow) and they had originally stated that all submissions needed to be confirmed by March 22nd.
Clearly this is incongruous with any professional criteria for “experts” in any given field.
I am following this up here to further illuminate that anyone should be extremely vigilant in investigating any company that asks for payment from an individual whom they requested to be a speaker.
I started to get suspicious after receiving two invitations to different conferences with the same email text, including high appreciation for my recent publication…. (I must admit that it boosted my ego at least for a couple of minutes). The source is on your list. Thank you!
Pride conference, they are the worst. they postponed the conference I was supposed to attend and took my registration fees.
I want to ask for any experiences with conferences from Scientificcrew. I recently got their offer to go to a conference in Boston, however, the company is based in India. And because they send an invitation to one of my postdoc; therefore, my abstract is accepted easily without any reviews. I’ve never been to any conference before, thats why I hope someone could help me verify this company. Thank you !
@DOUNG please dont believe its a predatory organization- Scientificcrew
Mscholar conferences are the predatoryconferences and it’s a sister organization of scinentificfederation: https://www.mscholarconferences.com/
Mscholar conference websites have been blocked by my university as a phishing website, according to my research it has been established recently by Deepesh Reddy who is just graduated and spamming scientists, the address listed as Rhode Island and California is fake too. Mscholar conferences are the Dark Side of Predatory Conferences. It is located in Hyderabad, India, don’t believe and don’t waste time on these conferences. t is yet another way to suck people into paying for Mscholar events
I don’t have any fear to write this comment, being an employee there in Mscholar private limited, it’s such a worst company where they can index the conferences in 3rd party websites and collect the data of scientists and spamming them and sucking them for conference registration. Nobody knows the subject and they are worst at the subject knowledge and they organize conferences by spamming researchers, wow such a predatory conferences they are organizing and I appreciate them for recruiting the employees and spamming researchers and they never pay salaries in time, its sure an Indian Hyderabad company and don’t believe the M scholars Private Limited, please remember these things and never attend the predatory mscholarconfreences.
Here are two scammers too.. be careful
wrfer.org
http://iser.co