Watch for false Scopus or UGC claims and copied websites, and also for acceptance in a few days with the fee asked only later.
A predatory journal takes money from the author and publishes almost any paper, with very little peer review or none. A cloned journal is worse, because it pretends to be a real journal that already exists. Either way you lose the fee, and many times the paper also, because most universities will not count it. Once published, you mostly cannot withdraw it and send it elsewhere.
Why this matters more for Indian PhD scholars
In the five cities we serve, most universities want published papers before the synopsis or the thesis. Because of this rule many scholars are in a hurry to publish somewhere. Predatory journals are very much aware of that hurry. Some of their mails talk about your synopsis deadline itself.
The universities are also aware of this. In TNAU’s rulebook there is a line about this. Papers in predatory or pseudo journals, it says, are not considered at any cost. IISER Thiruvananthapuram accepts only journals from the lists kept by its Schools, to keep predatory titles out. So a wrong journal costs you more than the fee. You may fall short of the paper count you need, and by that time the synopsis date is already fixed.
The email that starts it
Mostly it comes a few weeks after your first conference paper. The first line is “Dear Esteemed Author” and soon they will call your work “excellent”. Then they invite you to some journal with a very wide title. One example is “International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering, Science and Management”. Some offer a special issue, a discount or publication within 15 days.
Genuine journals also send calls for papers, and that is normal. But a real editor will not praise a paper they have not read, and will not promise you any date. Treat every invitation you did not ask for as unverified till you check it. Please avoid the link given inside the mail and search the journal yourself in Scopus or on the publisher’s main site and compare.
| What you see | Why it worries us | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| A mail asking you to submit, starting with “Dear Researcher” | Genuine journals hardly ever look for authors through mass emails | Search for the journal on your own in Scopus or on the publisher site, and ignore the link in the mail |
| “Scopus indexed” or “UGC approved” written on the home page | Anybody can type those words on a website | Look up the ISSN in Scopus Sources. Keep in mind that UGC has discontinued the UGC-CARE listing |
| Acceptance within one week, or publication promised in advance | Real peer review of a paper needs much more time than this | See what review process the journal states, and check the “received” and “accepted” dates printed on its recent papers |
| Fee asked only after acceptance, by bank transfer to a person | Genuine fees are shown on the site and paid to the publisher | Go through the fee page before you submit anything |
| A web address almost like a known journal’s, but slightly different | Cloned journals put the same title and ISSN on a new domain | Match the domain with the website link shown in the Scopus record |
| Editorial board without affiliations, or names you cannot find anywhere | Some board lists are made up, or copied from other journals | Look for two or three board members on their own university websites |
Indexing claims you can test in two minutes
Most of the time the home page show many claims together, like “Scopus indexed”, “Web of Science”, “UGC approved”, “Google Scholar indexed”, and an impact factor with two decimal places. Some may be true and some made up. You can check the important ones in a couple of minutes.
For Scopus, search the ISSN on Scopus Sources. For Web of Science, search the same ISSN on the Master Journal List. If the journal is not found there, the claim is false. If it is found but coverage has stopped, see the Scopus discontinued list, which is updated every month.
Now about the “UGC approved” line. In February 2025 UGC put out a notice and stopped the CARE list. After some months UGC put up a reference list of 1,474 journals, in a notice dated July 2025. The same notice says that being included or left out of that list does not mean validation or endorsement by UGC. So if a journal says it is UGC-CARE approved today, at the least its information is old.
“Google Scholar indexed” proves nothing, since Google Scholar picks up almost any PDF online. And an impact factor from some unknown agency is not the Clarivate Journal Impact Factor.
Cloned and hijacked journals
Even careful scholars get caught in this one. You search the title in Scopus and you find it. It is active, and it may even be in Q2. So you submit the paper, pay publication fee and it gets published. Later your university says the paper will not count, because the website you used was not the real journal.
A cloned journal copies the real title and ISSN, sometimes the board names also, onto a new domain. Many times the real journal has an old, simple website. The clone looks newer and replies to your mails faster, and that is why scholars trust it.
Open the Scopus record and see the website link the publisher gave. Compare that link with the domain in your browser, letter by letter. If the two domains are different, do not submit. Anna University’s Centre for Research sent a circular about this on 21 October 2022. The circular said if a scholar claims a paper from a fake copy of a journal on its list for synopsis or thesis, that paper would be rejected outright. It also warned that these fake journals reach scholars by email, WhatsApp and Telegram, so this is not rare.
Review speed and fees
Proper peer review needs time, as reviewers are busy with their own teaching and researches. Review, revision and a second review rarely finish in a few weeks. In Scopus journals several months is a common range. When a journal offers acceptance in 72 hours, or publication within one week of payment, most probably no review happened.
Next, the fee. Many genuine journals charge an open access fee and there is nothing wrong in that. But the amount, the currency and what it covers should be on the website itself, before you submit. Some journals mention the fee for the first time in the acceptance mail. Some others want extra “fast-track” charge. Both are worrying. Payment to some UPI ID or to an individual’s bank account is another bad sign. And if they want money before you have even seen the reviewers’ comments, stop there.
A checklist before you submit
The Think. Check. Submit. initiative publishes a checklist for journals that is useful for Indian scholars also. Roughly, it asks these questions.
- Have you or your department colleagues read papers from this journal earlier?
- Is the ISSN genuine, and can you contact the publisher by phone, by email and at a postal address?
- Does the journal clearly say what type of peer review it does, without promising acceptance or a very quick review?
- Fees should be written on the site. Is it clear what each fee pays for?
- Is the publisher a COPE member, and if it is an open access journal, is it listed in DOAJ?
If several answers are no, look for another journal. For a first screening you can use our predatory journal checker or journal checker. The tool gives only a first idea, so you still have to open Scopus and see the record with your own eyes.
If you have already submitted or paid
First thing, stop paying. If the paper is not published yet, send the journal a withdrawal request in writing by email and keep a copy of it. Some predatory journals simply ignore the withdrawal, and some ask for a “withdrawal fee”. Don’t pay that fee also.
Inform your guide immediately. If the paper is already online, ask your guide and the research office how your university will treat it. Some scholars think of sending the same paper to another journal. That is risky, since the first copy will still be there online. Before trying that, your guide and the new journal’s editor should know the full history.
Checking a journal with us
Under our research paper and publication support, we go through your journal shortlist with you, remotely from Nagercoil. We check the indexing and the coverage, the domain and the fees, and what your university’s own rule says. When we have a doubt about any journal in the list, we will say that to you openly. We do not sell placements and we do not promise acceptance, because the editor takes that decision and you remain the author. To make a shortlist of genuine journals, read our guide to choosing a Scopus journal.
Questions scholars ask
Is every journal that charges a fee predatory?
No. Many genuine open access journals take a publication fee from authors. What you have to see is whether the fee is shown openly before submission, and whether a real peer review is done.
The journal is in Scopus. Can it still be a problem?
Yes, Scopus listing alone is not enough. Sometimes the website you are using is a clone of the real journal. In other cases the real journal itself gets discontinued later. Match the domain with the Scopus record, and check the monthly discontinued list.
Does India keep an official blacklist of journals?
At present no official Indian list is in force. Use the checks given above. If your university keeps its own list, like Anna University’s CFR list, follow that also.
Can my supervisor’s name protect a doubtful paper?
No. Universities check the journal where the paper is published. Even a senior professor’s name in the author list will not make a doubtful journal acceptable.
Sources
- Think. Check. Submit., checklist for journals
- Elsevier, Scopus content policy and selection
- UGC public notice on UGC-CARE, 11 February 2025
- UGC public notice on UGC-CARE journals, 16 July 2025
- Anna University Centre for Research, circular on fake journals, 21 October 2022
- IISER Thiruvananthapuram Ph.D. guidebook 2023–24 and 2024–25