Crime pays

A paper mill offered me $250,000 per year

An editor of a psychology journal was offered $1,500 per accepted paper. Peanuts, really. I was offered $5,000 per paper — but I could have negotiated harder — for 500 papers per year. (Documented below.)

Incentive pay is a good thing. At Vrije, we get teaching relief proportional to last year’s publications and a phone call from the rector if we get into the Big 3. (Sussex is less generous.) Other universities pay cash. The largest number I’ve heard is $10,000 per paper.

Numbers that large demand vigorous enforcement of ethical standards. We recently caught a PhD student. He had written a sound paper on his own and sold five co-authorship positions. That is one way to finance your studies.

Editors are in a better position. I could have retired from admin had I taken the offer below. Instead, I reported the authors and shut the scam down.

Rumour has that some editors have given in to temptation.

On 20 November 2024, I got the following email:

Subject: Proposal for Long-term Collaboration in Manuscript Solicitation

Dear Editor,

I hope this email finds you well.

I am the manager of [redacted] in America. One of our businesses is to solicit manuscripts from diverse regions all over the world, and recommend them to suitable academic journals.

I'm writing to you to discuss the potential cooperation with “Energy Economics”. The main content of our cooperation is that we solicit and recommend papers to you to publish in your journal if they meet your requirements, even better, within a short period.

If you are interested in this cooperation, we can submit related articles according to your requirements, and the number of articles will be as required. Of course, if you are willing to receive more papers, we will be pleased to submit more.

We are open to discuss more details. I look forward to your reply.

The email was signed Vinnie. We continued our discussion on WhatsApp.

27/11/2024, 09:59 - Richard Tol: Vinnie: This is Richard Tol. A guaranteed publication in Energy Economics costs $5000. As I said, I will need to see a sample paper first.

27/11/2024, 10:06 - Vinnie: Okay, sir. Could you please tell me how long the review time, online time, and index time?

27/11/2024, 10:07 - Richard Tol: We need to keep up pretenses so review 6 months. Online and index is a matter of days.

27/11/2024, 10:11 - Vinnie: Will I pay you 5000 dollars after accepting the paper?

27/11/2024, 10:11 - Vinnie: paypal

27/11/2024, 10:11 - Vinnie: ?

27/11/2024, 10:12 - Richard Tol: No cure no pay: Payment upon conditional acceptance / minor revision.

27/11/2024, 10:12 - Richard Tol: PayPal is fine

27/11/2024, 10:13 - Vinnie: ok ,payment after acceptance is very

27/11/2024, 10:13 - Vinnie: This message was deleted

27/11/2024, 10:13 - Vinnie: good

27/11/2024, 10:14 - Vinnie: i can submit many papers

27/11/2024, 10:14 - Richard Tol: Please do

27/11/2024, 10:14 - Vinnie: Can you recommend a writing team to me?

27/11/2024, 10:15 - Richard Tol: No. That's your job.

27/11/2024, 10:16 - Vinnie: how much is the APC?

27/11/2024, 10:16 - Richard Tol: O

27/11/2024, 10:17 - Richard Tol: 0 even

27/11/2024, 10:19 - Vinnie: When revising a manuscript, do we replace the author's name before it is accepted?

27/11/2024, 10:20 - Richard Tol: No, that would set off every alarm.

27/11/2024, 10:22 - Vinnie: Can you help review the topic in advance to see if it meets your submission scope?

27/11/2024, 10:24 - Richard Tol: Scope is on the web: economics and finance of energy and environment

27/11/2024, 10:26 - Vinnie: ok,i will submit very soon

27/11/2024, 10:47 - Vinnie: Dear sir, you can review the manuscript in first, right? Can all manuscripts after submission be accepted?

27/11/2024, 10:48 - Richard Tol: First paper on Gmail. After that, normal submission with notification on WhatsApp

27/11/2024, 11:02 - Vinnie: OK sir

27/11/2024, 11:02 - Vinnie: I will give you about 10 titles.please review them first

28/11/2024, 08:04 - Vinnie: 1. Financial agglomeration and financing constraints in enterprise green technology innovation: theoretical mechanism and empirical test;

2. The enhancing effect of green financial development on the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure: the mechanism of technological innovation;

28/11/2024, 08:05 - Vinnie: 3. Research on the synergistic impact of environmental regulation and digital economic development on green all-factor energy efficiency

4. ⁠4. Research on the impact and mechanism of environmental tax reform on energy utilization efficiency: the regulatory role based on economic aggregation

5. Multi-perspective integration of corporate social responsibility, digital economy and enterprise energy utilization efficiency

28/11/2024, 08:06 - Richard Tol: Titles are fine, but anyone can come up with a decent title. I need to see papers and authors.

28/11/2024, 08:09 - Vinnie: If the topic is within your scope, I will start to contact the author.

28/11/2024, 08:10 - Richard Tol: Please do

28/11/2024, 08:17 - Vinnie: Ok

04/12/2024, 03:59 - Vinnie: dear sir，The author has already confirmed it.

Financial Agglomeration and Financing Constraints in Enterprise Green Technology Innovation: Theoretical Mechanisms and Empirical Tests--------Does it comply? Can he start writing?

04/12/2024, 20:33 - Richard Tol: Yes go ahead

05/12/2024, 01:09 - Vinnie: ok sir

16/12/2024, 01:30 - Vinnie: Dear sir.What is the plagiarism rate requirement?

16/12/2024, 05:59 - Richard Tol: 20% or less

16/12/2024, 07:38 - Vinnie: ok sir

16/12/2024, 11:21 - Vinnie: Dear sir, I have prepared several manuscripts and will be ready to submit them in a few days.Can the first few manuscripts be quickly hired and online, so that the authors can trust me later and I can submit a large number of manuscripts? I can submit about 500 manuscripts every year.

16/12/2024, 11:22 - Vinnie: I can pay extra for the quick publication of the first few manuscripts online in advance.

16/12/2024, 11:24 - Richard Tol: Please submit and we'll take it from there

16/12/2024, 11:51 - Vinnie: OK sir

16/12/2024, 11:56 - Vinnie: Dear sir.Do manuscripts need real data?

16/12/2024, 11:56 - Richard Tol: Nah

18/12/2024, 09:01 - Vinnie: dear sir ,are you there?

18/12/2024, 09:02 - Vinnie: <Media omitted>

18/12/2024, 09:02 - Richard Tol: Yes

18/12/2024, 09:03 - Vinnie: The author is ready to contribute. Is it submitted by the website system? Or contribute by email?

18/12/2024, 09:03 - Richard Tol: Website

18/12/2024, 09:04 - Vinnie: ok,I'll send you the receipt number after the author submit.

18/12/2024, 09:05 - Richard Tol: 👍

19/12/2024, 03:37 - Vinnie: Dear sir,the number is ENEECO-D-24-03698

19/12/2024, 03:38 - Vinnie: Please give it a quick review and accept it. I need to gain the trust of the authors. Thank you.

19/12/2024, 03:39 - Vinnie: Please let me know at any time if you need extra expenses.