The impostor site.
The journal Bradleya, published by the British Cactus and Succulent Society appears to have been hijacked. Journal hijacking is the process of maliciously setting up a duplicate website for a respected journal and then inviting article submissions for the legitimate journal on the hijacked page.
- Website of the authentic journal: http://www.bcss.org.uk/brad.php
- Website of hijacked journal: http://www.britishedu.org.uk/
The hijackers make money by collecting the author fees on the submitted papers. In this case, the hijackers are not making any material available open access; each article listed on the site has an abstract but no full text. There is a “BUY NOW” button with each abstract. So they are potentially making money by selling articles as well.
Volumes 1-5 (1983-1987) copy the original Bradleya tables of contents. Then there is a gap, and then volumes 28-31 (2010-2013) apear. The later issues have abstracts for articles covering diverse scientific topics. The ISSN and impact factor from the authentic journal are copied on the bogus journal’s website.
The hijacked site has a new scope and claims “The journal publishes experimental and theoretical results of research on, amongst other topics, semiconductors, magnetic materials, and applied biophysics.”
A portion of the authentic journal’s website.
Bradleya is actually the society’s yearbook, published once a year. I sent a message to the society informing them of this but have not received a reply. I am unable to determine who is behind this hijacking.
