More fake-scientific-conference spam from BIT Life Sciences
Would you pay to go to a fake "scientific conference" in China where speakers were invited at random? What if the scientists they list as speakers hadn't actually agreed to speak? That seems to be the business model of BIT Life Sciences. For example, "Knut Buttnase" got invited to chair a session based on an abstract and CV that were obviously fake.
They're getting more sophisticated, though. They're still inviting me to speak on topics I know nothing about -- "Fungal Bioenergy", most recently -- but their software now inserts the title of a recent paper into the email.
"Since we have learnt that you are making valuable contributions to INSERT TITLE HERE, your unique inspirational message will be the perfect way to kick off the congress."
I guess the idea is that, if 5% of the people they email have some connection to the conference topic, some of those people will be fooled into signing up. But that might not work, for people who have already received lots of spam from them. Also, anyone who Googles "BIT Life Sciences" would hesitate to send them money. So I predict that their next move will be to change their name.
They are listing some real scientists as speakers. Apparently they've done that in the past, without bothering to make sure the claimed speakers were in the right field. The speakers they're listing now look OK, but the one I checked with emails that:
"I didn't agree to speak, after they invited me I declined citing lack of funds to justify such a trip and they offered to waive the conference fee [maybe they get kickbacks from the hotel? -- Ford] only so I said no. I guess I should ask them to take my name of their list."I'll update this post if they actually remove his name. If not, they're not only spammers, but guilty of fraud.