Every year, thousands of researchers around the world lose tens of millions of dollars publishing in predatory journals — including those indexed in Scopus. The result of such a publication is always the same: wasted time, lost money, and a damaged reputation.
The article either never gets indexed or is removed from the database after review — and it does not count toward a degree defense, a grant application, or confirmation of an academic title. According to research by the InterAcademy Partnership, predatory publishers received over $178 million in direct article processing charges alone. Over 80% of researchers believe the problem is already critical or growing rapidly. The number of journals operating under this scheme is not decreasing — it is accelerating.
Most of these journals do not look predatory. They are indexed in Scopus, have a quartile, an editorial board — everything that ostensibly signals legitimacy. The warning signs are only visible to those who know where to look: a sudden explosion in the number of issues, an aims & scope that no longer reflects what is actually being published, an editorial contact that does not match the country on the title page.
We identified 5 journals with exactly these signals — right now, they are actively accepting articles and actively collecting fees. Here is what we found.
What We Cover in This Edition
- A journal stuck in Scopus review status for over a year — still publishing monthly, still charging authors, with no decision on the horizon
- A once narrowly specialized pharmaceutical journal that ballooned to 16 issues per year, publishing on virtually any topic
- A Q1 journal — the quartile researchers trust least critically — that changed its publisher and quietly rewrote its scope to accept almost any topic
- A computer science journal that changed ownership to a foreign entity and now runs a conveyor belt of “special issues” — from cryptocurrency to concrete construction
- A 40-year-old special education journal whose only author contact is a WhatsApp number from a different country than the registered publisher
- Unique tools and solutions to help authors identify and avoid such journals before submitting their article
The same scheme, five different masks. Let us examine each one.
How These Journals Actually Reach You
The scheme is almost always the same. First — an invitation letter: the journal name sounds credible, the topic supposedly “perfectly matches” your research, and peer review is promised in days rather than months. According to an editorial analysis of PubMed (2025), only 7.35% of such invitations are truly relevant to the recipient's field — the remaining 93% are sent out en masse, to everyone, regardless of discipline.
Every one of the five journals in this edition followed the same path: first — aggressive invitation campaigns and deadline pressure (“limited slots in the issue”), then — peer review in 10 days, which is physically impossible for genuine peer review, and finally — coming under CSAB review.
Most authors without sufficient experience simply cannot tell a predatory invitation from a legitimate one — and tens of thousands of researchers fall for such invitations every year, losing time and money on a publication that will do nothing for their career.
Five Journals Under Close Watch
1. Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology
We have been monitoring this journal since January 2024. Initially, only quality articles were accepted, but from June–July 2024, the journal began accepting virtually anything while simultaneously raising publication fees. The journal has been in “on hold” status under Scopus CSAB review for over a year — and has received no official decision in that time. Meanwhile, the journal continues to publish monthly (currently — Volume 10, Issue 8, 2026) and continues charging authors, despite explicitly stating on its own website that indexation is “completely beyond our control” and no guarantees are provided.
- Over a year under CSAB review with no official decision
- Publication fee increased from $700 (2024) to $1,250 (2026) during active review
- Over 2,500+ articles published in the past year without quality screening — from plagiarism to low-quality AI-generated content
- Official publisher position: “indexing is completely beyond our control” — a risk warning, not a guarantee
2. International Journal of Drug Delivery Technology (IJDDT)
IJDDT has been indexed in Scopus since 2014. For over a decade, the journal published exclusively within pharmaceutical science, 4 issues per year. In early 2026, something changed dramatically: the journal has already released 16 issues — approximately 100 articles each. It is not just the volume: the content has gone far beyond pharmacy — agriculture, education, business, law. The journal behaves like a “dumping ground for any topic with a pharmaceutical label”: the stated scope is narrow, the actual content is chaotically broad.
- 16 issues in early 2026 instead of the standard 4 per year
- 100+ articles in each issue — no longer a journal, but a conveyor belt
- “11s”, “12s” format — mass article loading through a special issue scheme
- Off-topic articles (outside pharmacy) constitute the majority of recent issues
3. Interpersona: An International Journal on Personal Relationships
This journal is Q1, and that is precisely why it deserves special attention: Q1 no longer means “safe,” and this case is one of the most striking proofs. Interpersona existed for years as a legitimate academic publication on interpersonal relationships. Then it changed its publisher — transferring to the Brazilian organization GATE — and after that, everything began changing quite rapidly. The journal's scope is now deliberately vague: “human relationships in any sphere of life” — which covers psychology, business, law, biology, and virtually anything else. In practice, the journal is already sending invitations for fast-track paid publication without genuine peer review.
- Publisher change → complete overhaul of editorial policy
- Scope functions as a “rubber band” — fits any discipline
- Articles are already appearing with no clear connection to interpersonal relationships
- Fast-track paid publication without substantive peer review
4. International Journal of Computer Information Systems and Industrial Management Applications (IJCISIM)
The journal has been published since 2004; until 2024 it was run by Machine Intelligence Research Labs with a stable model — one volume per year. Everything changed in 2024, when the journal transferred to a new publisher — Cerebration Science Publishing Co., Limited (Hong Kong). The publisher change itself is already a warning sign. In 2025, one volume was published with over 100 articles, with a sharp increase in Chinese “educational” papers with a formal connection to information systems (“big data” or “AI” in the title — and that was enough). By 2026, the special issue conveyor was running at full capacity: 10 issues in 7 months (2 regular plus 8 special issues numbered 1s–8s), with content covering government procurement in Kyrgyzstan, Indian stock market fluctuations, coffee production in Southeast Asia, and rubber-concrete construction.
- Publisher change in 2024, immediately followed by a mass publication model
- 8 special issues in 7 months of 2026
- Special issue articles fall outside the stated aims & scope
- The 2025 regular volume is packed with Chinese educational articles with a nominal AI connection
5. International Journal of Special Education (IJSE)
The journal has been published since 1985 — over 40 years of academic reputation in special needs education and special education. Publisher: Sped sp. z o.o. (Poland, Bielsko-Biała). Indexed in both Scopus and Web of Science. Until 2025, it published steadily: two issues per year, with a clear focus on special education. In 2026, a collapse occurred: in the first seven months, 14 issues were published — two regular and 13 special (1s–13s). Special issue S13 alone contains approximately 110 articles — and this is where the situation becomes telling: of those ~110 articles, only 5–8 genuinely concern special education. The rest cover lower limb surgery, navigation system accuracy in dental implantology, skin cancer classification, financial hedging, fiscal potential analysis of South Sulawesi province, and the Janissaries and Bektashism in the Ottoman Empire. A separate warning signal: the only author contact is a WhatsApp number +968 96502464, country code +968 belonging to Oman. A Polish-registered company whose sole communication channel is an Omani WhatsApp number — a clear indicator that the journal's actual operators are not in Poland.
- 13 special issues in 7 months of 2026
- ~95% of articles in special issues have no connection to special education whatsoever
- The only editorial contact is a WhatsApp number from Oman, not an institutional email
- The stated peer review is incompatible with the publication pace and article volume
There Are Hundreds More Like These. What Can a Researcher Do to Avoid Losing Money, Time, and Reputation?
The five journals in this article are not an exception or a coincidence. This is a documented pattern that is scaling: according to COPE and Scopus CSAB data, the number of publications coming under review for suspicious dynamics grows every year. In 2025–2026 alone, dozens of Scopus journals came under review — and most of them continue to actively accept articles while the process is underway.
There are three things that can be checked manually before submitting an article — the issue archive, special issues, and the alignment of content with aims & scope. But checking this for every journal is a task that takes hours and requires expertise, because red flags are not always immediately visible.
Conclusion
Five journals, five different masks — but one and the same scheme: mass invitations, promises of lightning-fast peer review, and a scope that quietly stretches to fit any topic while the editorial team collects publication fees.
None of these journals looks obviously predatory at first glance. Each has a Scopus ID, a quartile, years of history, or a credible-sounding publisher name. This is precisely why the “eyeball test” no longer works — you need to look at the dynamics: how many issues were published in the past year, whether the publisher has changed, whether the actual content matches the stated aims & scope, and where the editorial correspondence is actually coming from.
Authors who choose a journal based solely on its quartile or Scopus presence risk ending up in the same situation: lost money, lost time, and an article that either never makes it into Scopus or is removed after the first CSAB review.
If you have doubts about a journal — do not rely solely on its quartile or Scopus presence. Use verified analytical tools and, if needed, consult specialists in academic publishing. Choosing the right journal is not luck or intuition. It is verification.
