IASTED Fake Conferences finished their bogus activities. No IASTED conference will be organized in 2015 and 2016 while the Fake WASET Conferences continue. IASTED really closed their bogus and fake activities: www.iasted.org
On the other hand the Fake WASET Conferences continue. Many other fake conferences are also organized by ACM, SIAM, AIP, Hindawi, SPRINGER, Elsevier, WorldScientific and IEEE. When we started the campaign against Fake, Bogus, Criminal ACM, SIAM, AIP, Hindawi, SPRINGER, Elsevier, WorldScientific and IEEE the academic community was really completely innocent.
Attention: Hindawi, SPRINGER, Elsevier, WorldScientific do not organize conference, but they publish (as Publishers) the volumes of thousand of fake conferences per year for some monery without checking the quality of their publication. Our blog (which is the number 1 in google search of fake conferences) consider Hindawi, SPRINGER, Elsevier, WorldScientific as Fake and Bogus publishers along with IEEE, ACM, AIP, IARIA and other fake/bogus publisher.
It was Cyril Labbe who indentified 120 SCIgen Fake Papers published in IEEEXplore (IEEE Digital Library) and preserved there for over than 5 years:
http://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763
and
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/02/24/springer-ieee-withdrawing-more-than-120-nonsense-papers/
WASET Conferences, a scourge of our academic civilization, have been announced until 2027
https://www.waset.org/conferences/2027
Who will be alive and who not from their bogus Scientific Committees in 2027? Have they really invited all the members of their committees until 2027?
Obviously these conferences are SCAM
It is very good of us to point out the issue.
There are plenty of links warning about WASET (a simple Google search- WASET/scam).
i.e.
https://plus.google.com/111668260744154762636/posts/QvKNSetQw4M
"I am very sorry for those who have had their money stolen; and it is a shame the authorities are near-useless at overcoming international scammers"(Stephen Gay, Australia)
another scholar says:
"I have really appreciated your blog about the WASET conferences. By the end of 2011 I got really interested in one conference that took place (or not?) one year ago at a very exotic (and thus attractive, not in the sense of Venice, but more adventurous) place, Ulan-Ude, Russia. But then the web site (http://www.epsglobal.ca/Meeting_en/new_en/20111027/403.html#) was very incomplete, the organizing company from another area, and the registration expensive (US$ 1200), and I gave it up because it looked too dangerously to be a scam. I still don't know if it was a scam or actually a good conference, but today the organizer's web site looks as it has not been updated for at least one year. It is annoying to think that we could fall for it, but is very good to be aware."
Reiner Neumann, DSc, CETEM, Brazil
"yes indeed i also got an acceptance letter after 2 days without any reviews! thank you very much for this website i'll cancel and withdraw my paper i had worked on it for 5 months
this is a no no publication to WASET "
Yasmin
In another comment we found this
It is a warning to young researches who are anxious to attend conferences and present their work. i have followed the WASET website for the last two years and got suspicious about the conferences. Is it possible to organise conferences on more than 10 areas simultaneously in the same hotel? Later,in one of the blogs ,I read the experiences of a scholar who attended the conference. I think there is a need to expose the activities of WASET .Hope more people will share their experiences and expose WASET conference activities.
It's interesting that the organisers have nothing to say in their defence, even though I brought this blog to their attention over 2 weeks ago.
I did receive exactly the same invitation letter for my paper on government, election and corruption from WASET August 14-15 Venice, Italy. I have asked further questions on hotels,conference fee and rundown panels. It has been more than month I did nt get any answer. As I was wondering, I found your post as a caution. Thank you very much for sharing this information
while in another one Omar Hassane will say
I have also attended a WASET conference in Dubai and got the idea quickly. If your paper is worthy DO NOT waste it by publishing it on WASET journals. They are not professional journals neither the conferences have anything to do with science. Anyone can publish anything in WASET. No reviews... When I sent an article for publication, it has been accepted the next day without any comments!!! SO if you want just to publish... WASET may help you but if you are a researcher with a worthy background and a professional, just don't look at WASET.
n8 December 2013 at 12:08 did any one attend the conference anywhere? I have a conference at Paris on dec 30-31 2013. I am hesitant to pay and travel and then find nothing over there.
can anyone help?
Omar Hassanein8 December 2013 at 12:09 did u actually go to the conference?
can you tell me more about it? Amanda Wills9 December 2013 at 11:20 Omar, A few people here have commented that they have attended WASET conferences, see Christos's comment above and Hector's below. It seems that the conferences DO run, but that they are very low quality and include a lot of papers which are of no relevance to your subject. Tahani Farah13 February 2014 at 22:37
Hello, I have a Waset conference in Istanbul on 17-18 February, and I'm hesitant, because I doubt that it is a scam, the problem that the members of WASET gives us an address of hotel saying that this event will take place there, whereas members of the hotel say that this is not the case!
Last year I attended a WASET conference in London, it surprised me how fast I got my paper accepted but I wasn´t suspecting any fraud, however, when I attend the conference I was very disappointed, I arrive on time for registration and there was only one person starting to unpack some materials for the conference (there wasn´t any signal regarding the conference in the hotel), when the conferences started I was very surprised as they were about a wide range of topics (the conference was about sustainable agriculture), all in all it was a very unpleasant experience for me as it was only the second time I presented a paper in an international conference and I put a lot of effort (and money) on it.
Héctor Sandoval
Some comments against WASET Fake and Bogus Conferences
Few days before, I attended WASET conference in Barcelona. I felt guilty of my self my wasting my important paper for it. Its broad. no reviews..in a very small room, people are presenting. I don't know why I submitted it...There were around 50 papers accepted. (probably all submitted papers) Just a half day sessions... Researchers-from Japan
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I sent a paper to WASET in 2011, which they published in issue 80 of the year. However, I cannot locate the article again in their website presently. It is amazing because I did not pay a dime for the publication. Could it be a scam?
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I'm not sure that they are a scam as such, more that they are just extremely low quality conferences and journals. Ok, if you fancy a bit of academic tourism, but no good if you are hoping to further your career. That's just my opinion though :)
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Oh no.. I just came across your website and I am attending a WASET conference in Malaga later on 28-29 November. I hope all goes well. This is bad... I spent so much time writing the paper and so much money to register and fly there. :(
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Could you let us know how it goes in Malaga? I think it's helpful to hear from people who have actually attended these conferences. I hope it goes well for you...
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The conference did go on but it is definitely of low quality. There were only 4 papers submitted for the conference that I registered for and only 2 presenters turned up. The conference hotel was also changed at the last minute. The administrator for the conference was also dubious. He claimed that he is a professor but refused to provide any name cards or official email address.
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That's sounds awful. Thanks for coming back and sharing this with us and I'm so sorry to hear that your hard work was not rewarded by attending a good conference.
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I am also one of those who felt chearted by WASET. they are definitely low quality confrences, poor organization, conference rooms packed - they are small. In Paris in June we had to walk across the street to get our lunch as s result all the afternoon sessions were late and poorly attended. they are only good for academic tourists!
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We register for a WASET conference, but until the last minute, they send us an email to say that they have not revieve our registration fees. I contact the hotel where the conference must take place they say that they have not informations about this event. We was confused and decide to give up. It's an adventure to go to a country and you are not sure that the conference will take place or not.
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I have been wondering if WASET is a real thing. I was looking at the Chemical and Material Engineering conference however got a bit confuse why there are many similar conference in each year in different countries. I am so glad to read this comment. Thanks so much for exposing the scam.
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Does anyone know how I could remove my paper from the WASET website? the conference is in two days, i did not pay the registration fees and i would like to withdraw my paper should i contact them telling them i will not attend?
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I would contact them and ask them to remove your paper, although I wouldn't be surprised if you don't hear back! Mary Anne
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I just posted elsewhere in the blogosphere re: my concerns that this very morning I was told by WASET that I am NOT presenting afterall at the May 16/17 "conference" in Amsterdam for "International Nursing Informatics Conference" which didn't feel right from the start. My three papers were accepted very quickly, if memory serves, not enough time elapsed to give it a proper review. I only learned this this very morning (Saturday April 26th) and despite what I and the credit card company say--there WAS clearance/authorization to charge the very expensive meeting registration to my credit card (about $900 U. S. money), WASET says I am not registered so cannot present. Upset earlier today that my time and effort and hopes were invested, I seem to be quickly changing to disappointment that I was 'taken' mixed with gratitude that it isn't too late for me to cut some losses on the travel arrangements for this, my working vacation, cancelling Amsterdam altogether and continuing instead to use my precious time off for my attached real vacation with family in Ireland. Anyone, should I cut my losses/forgetting about Amsterdam and WASET because its' either totally fake or of poor quality? I am senior in my field of nursing administration here at home and an identified scholar with a satisfactory set of publications and scholarly work which I can continue another way-will find different homes for my publications....is this what I should do?
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I'm sorry to hear about your experience. As to what to do, if I were you, I would cut my losses, unless I particularly wanted a holiday in Amsterdam! From what others have said, even if the conference goes ahead, it would seem that the programmes are very random and I doubt it would be of much use to you professionally. Good luck and I hope you enjoy your holiday in Ireland!
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It seems that WASET aren't the only events to watch out for. There's an interesting article on Australian Mining about Australian Industry and Lifestyle Exhibitions consistently postponing their mining exhibitions: http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/features/australian-industry-and-lifestyle-exhibitions-mini
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I Have decided to continue to Amsterdam for a more pure vacation experience as the fees to make changes for flights are unreasonable. I, of course, will not be presenting (I did not pay a registration fee) but had I not figured this out two days ago (that WASET is a scam!), I would have shown up at the appointed time and place in Amsterdam, trying to insist, if you will, that I should be allowed to present...and pay at the door...as the WASET site indicates you could. I, of course, would pay with credit card which is where the revelation seems to occur for some: that you canNOT pay by credit card at all (people would have a recourse) and the bloggers here indicate that they were taken (some anyway) by wiring money (I assume no/little recourse for the individual). It has been suggested to me that I show up at the conference to 'take names' perhaps try to register for the conference, see what happens. Maybe report to hotel management and/or local police. Trouble is, I suspect all will say no crime per se, just poor quality, questionable business practices and low integrity. I am not beyond showing up to learn ....because I will be in town and its just a cab ride away. The meeting notice as of today 4.28 http://www.waset.org/conference/2014/05/amsterdam/ICNI/program indicates there are 134 presenters in about 3 diff exhibit halls which seems like a pretty large crowd. The conference is at: NH Naarden Hotel IJsselmeerweg 3 1411 AA Naarden The Netherlands I plan to call in the morning to engage them in discussion. I do not intend to make it my life's work to bring these people to justice; but i am motivated enough to explore writing for publication on the matter of "predatory open-access publishing" or "predatory scholarship" which are the terms I recently learned, since Saturday. Who has a suggestion for me if I go to the hotel? Talk to the 'organizer'/gather evidence? Talk to the other attendees...others on this blog indicate some of the meetings simply don't 'go' while some get moved to a different venue? I have internet access while away, I leave Friday. If I do write for publication, are my keywords ok as per just above?
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I am in a WASET conference held in Copenhagen right now. I admit that acdemically it is not a very high quality conference. In this session there are presentations in different subjects but all categorized under social sciences and humanities .
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Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to complain on the quality of the conference that I have attended recently in Istanbul. Overall for me, this was the worst conference that I have ever joined since becoming an academician. Poor management on tentative and facilities have caused a lot of problem during the program. On top of that, the participants are pooled from wide different background and being registered under different conference name. Therefore, the discussion become more general and presenters need to clarify the topics in details which not supposed to be. It is undeniable that this is the low quality profit based conference organizer and attempts to easily extract the money from the conference fees. In return, the participants attended poor quality program and being given cheap printed proceeding and pouch. I am distributing this information to all colleagues and friends to ban any program organized by WASET. Thank you
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I have both attended WASET one conference, submitted and published an abstract and paper there, and have reviewed several papers for them this spring. It is true that the conference was small, held in several rooms with several tracks, but the people who attended had done real work, some of it rather good, and they tended to be from countries that have historically had a difficult time publishing in western journals. I have published in "good"mainstream journals before myself also. It is a peer reviewed system, they have many of these conferences and it is possible to go and just have a vacation in an interesting place. However, for my purposes, I wanted to publish within my first year in a new place, starting from scratch, and WASET enabled me to do that. I also met junior scholars who were learning how to present and publish and who got good feedback on their work at this conference. They did feed us within the conference with hearty lunches, and at the end also took us to lunch at a decent restaurant that was NOT a chain (this conference was in NYC, which I know well from living and working there, and the restaurant was one that had an "A" from the NYC Board of Health, and, one that even though it is in a touristy part of town near Penn Station, was very acceptable) for further conversation. Our host was a long time professor in one of the local NYC universities. The persons who reviewed my abstract were polite, and persistent, and they did make comments (and I had to change the format repeatedly to get it into the online system). I realized when I went to the conference that it was because the booklet contained full papers, and you are meant to submit papers that are camera ready for review and commentary because once they are accepted they apparently go into the conference booklet, which then counts as a publication. While I will grant that WASET conferences are not like the big professional science conferences that many of you may have gone to they have a definite niche, and serve a purpose. I would not be so quick to denigrate what they do - everyone needs to start somewhere, and some people might be a bit overwhelmed going to IEEE, or AAAS, or ACSB, or any of a number of larger, professional conferences with a bit less hand holding. And, you do get your work out there - since I can remember publishing at a time when little cards from people all over the world would arrive requesting a copy of your paper (which was exciting ! But, took a long time from submission to publication) the WASETs of the world can serve a purpose that is helpful.
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I am a PhD student and, unfortunately, my collegue and I have been victim of this fake conference. We were looking for a conference about vaccines and vaccination and we decided to join the ICVV 2014 in Rome, the "International Conference of Vaccines and Vaccination" organized by Waset. When the congress program was available (only less than one week before the conference) we noticed that the list of abstracts and posters did not reflect the topics we were interested in and that were promoted in the flyer on Waset website. We tried many times to ask an explanation but, obviously, they didn't answered (the only way to contact them is by mail). After that we looked up for other conferences organized by Waset in the same period and city. What we noticed was that there were many conferences with different names and topics planned on the same day and at the same place of the ours. Unfortunately, we have wasted money that we would have wanted to put in our education.
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I have attended a WASET 'conference'. I believe the organisers are fraudulent in their advertising of the event. The same 'conference' is advertised under several different scientific specialities, ranging from remote sensing, to genetic and molecular engineering, business, statistics etc. so people applying to attend or present are lead to believe that the conference is in their specialist field and the audience will be a collection of their peers. What actually happens is that all these specialities are clumped into the same conference!! And you are lucky if you get even one talk on the subject of the conference you actually applied for. You are given a certificate of attendance stating that you have participated in a conference about a certain subject. This is blatantly false. I did not present. Those that did present, I thought had good quality research. However I am concerned that if state in their CV's that they have presented at a WASET conference or had their work published in the WASET journal, it could be detrimental to their careers. The organisation was well below what I have experienced in every other conference I have attended. The computer provided did not work, presentations that were sent to be downloaded to the website were not there, and the number of speakers far outweighed the time allocated for them to speak.
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Thank you all for bringing up the WASET "conferences"! As PhD student, I found an interesting conference coming in London, sent an abstract and got it "peer reviewed" in 3 days. The acceptance email came from waset.org -address and I became suspicious. I googled WASET, and one of the first pages I found was this blog. Thanks to you, I withdraw my abstract and send it to another conference organized by well-known international association.
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Hello there, thank God I googled and stumbled upon this blog. I had sent my paper to Waset Conf scheduled on feb 2015 in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and had been accepted within a week. But was a bit confusing when I received no reviews, that is obviously weird. I was planning to go, but recently stumbled upon a list of journals and publishers that are banned from Ministry of Higher Education in my country, and Waset happens to be one of them! Then i googled and this entry confirms it. Tq. How do we withdraw our paper from the conf?
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Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. DeLinn, I don't know how you withdraw a paper, I have had no success in contacting the organisers myself. Maybe just email them and tell them you are withdrawing it and then consider it withdrawn and submit it somewhere else?
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My experience is more positive but ... I attended the ICLL 2014 (language learning) in Oslo. We were lucky - the conference was held in the announced hotel (we booked accommodation in another, cheaper hotel), papers were published in the International journal of social, management, economics and business engineering - but probably this is an online journal WITHOUT ISSN or ISBN.
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It's sad that many researchers are tricked into giving money to fraudsters... Since you mention the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN) in the article, here is an announcement made by the European Neural Network Society (ENNS) about the fake conference with the same acronym "organized" by Waset: http://e-nns.org/2014/10/warning-about-fake-conference-on-neural-networks/
http://e-nns.org/2014/10/warning-about-fake-conference-on-neural-networks/
I just attended the WASET conference today in Venice. It is a completely fake conference. There were 41 seats in a hotel room. In total fewer than 15 people attended., and the topics presented are not in the same area at all. The organisation only intends to cheat people to pay. The key issue for people who have suffered from the fake conferences is to let WASET fall.
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WASET announced that the conference is on 13-14 November 2014 in Venice. However, the so-called "conference" is located in Mestre, which is a sober and dirty town nearby Venice. Very dishonest and completely miss-leading! The only goal of the organisor is to cheat people, as many as possible, in order to get higher profit. WASET does not care about any content of the conference. Is there any possibility to sue WASET?
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I submitted a paper to WASET conference in London 28-29/2014 and the review I received only recommended to change format to their template, nothing factual! Given the fact the paper contained numerous mistakes (as reviewers from an impacted non-WASET journal remarked), I wonder if somebody reviews it for WASET at all...for 450 EUR, supposed to be in a mediocre hotel in Wembley, this is clearly not worth the money, so I didnt pay. Michal
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I am very sad with what I have just read... I was accepted to the conference in London on January 19th-20th in 2015. I was going to pay my fee right now when I found the blog and discovered WASET is fake! I have no words to say how sorry I am. I had worked on my paper for months! Has anyone heard about the London Conference in 2015? Thank you for the warning...
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Although my article was accepted by the Waset within 2 days after submitting, I did not pay the fee and participate in the conference, because I read this blog. Thank you very much everyone. But, I visited the venue to check the situation in Thailand on 18th - 19th December. The Waset's international conference was held at the small floor of Amari Hotel, in which there was no guide plate and flag with conference name in the hotel including the floor. Therefore it was difficult for me to find the conference hall and reception. Finally, I confirmed the conference with a receptionist. There were several participants in the floor in front of the reception, but they went to somewhere without participation in the ongoing session. Actually, I took some photos. This was first time for me to see the conference without any notice board in the venue.
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I really appreciate all you guys for sharing such useful experiences, I decided to participate WASET conference to be held in San Fransisco on Jun 2015 and was a little suspicious to the committee members as all were working on completely irrelevant fields, then I searched and found this page, this is really beneficial for every researcher, thanks
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Check also FAKE IEEE CONFERENCES, ACM FAKE CONFERENCES, SIAM FAKE CONFERENCES, AIP FAKE CONFERENCES
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On the other hand the Fake WASET Conferences continue. Many other fake conferences are also organized by ACM, SIAM, AIP, Hindawi, SPRINGER, Elsevier, WorldScientific and IEEE. When we started the campaign against Fake, Bogus, Criminal ACM, SIAM, AIP, Hindawi, SPRINGER, Elsevier, WorldScientific and IEEE the academic community was really completely innocent.
Attention: Hindawi, SPRINGER, Elsevier, WorldScientific do not organize conference, but they publish (as Publishers) the volumes of thousand of fake conferences per year for some monery without checking the quality of their publication. Our blog (which is the number 1 in google search of fake conferences) consider Hindawi, SPRINGER, Elsevier, WorldScientific as Fake and Bogus publishers along with IEEE, ACM, AIP, IARIA and other fake/bogus publisher.
It was Cyril Labbe who indentified 120 SCIgen Fake Papers published in IEEEXplore (IEEE Digital Library) and preserved there for over than 5 years:
http://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763
and
http://retractionwatch.com/2014/02/24/springer-ieee-withdrawing-more-than-120-nonsense-papers/
WASET Conferences, a scourge of our academic civilization, have been announced until 2027
https://www.waset.org/conferences/2027
Who will be alive and who not from their bogus Scientific Committees in 2027? Have they really invited all the members of their committees until 2027?
Obviously these conferences are SCAM
It is very good of us to point out the issue.
There are plenty of links warning about WASET (a simple Google search- WASET/scam).
i.e.
https://plus.google.com/111668260744154762636/posts/QvKNSetQw4M
"I am very sorry for those who have had their money stolen; and it is a shame the authorities are near-useless at overcoming international scammers"(Stephen Gay, Australia)
another scholar says:
"I have really appreciated your blog about the WASET conferences. By the end of 2011 I got really interested in one conference that took place (or not?) one year ago at a very exotic (and thus attractive, not in the sense of Venice, but more adventurous) place, Ulan-Ude, Russia. But then the web site (http://www.epsglobal.ca/Meeting_en/new_en/20111027/403.html#) was very incomplete, the organizing company from another area, and the registration expensive (US$ 1200), and I gave it up because it looked too dangerously to be a scam. I still don't know if it was a scam or actually a good conference, but today the organizer's web site looks as it has not been updated for at least one year. It is annoying to think that we could fall for it, but is very good to be aware."
Reiner Neumann, DSc, CETEM, Brazil
"yes indeed i also got an acceptance letter after 2 days without any reviews! thank you very much for this website i'll cancel and withdraw my paper i had worked on it for 5 months
this is a no no publication to WASET "
Yasmin
In another comment we found this
It is a warning to young researches who are anxious to attend conferences and present their work. i have followed the WASET website for the last two years and got suspicious about the conferences. Is it possible to organise conferences on more than 10 areas simultaneously in the same hotel? Later,in one of the blogs ,I read the experiences of a scholar who attended the conference. I think there is a need to expose the activities of WASET .Hope more people will share their experiences and expose WASET conference activities.
It's interesting that the organisers have nothing to say in their defence, even though I brought this blog to their attention over 2 weeks ago.
I did receive exactly the same invitation letter for my paper on government, election and corruption from WASET August 14-15 Venice, Italy. I have asked further questions on hotels,conference fee and rundown panels. It has been more than month I did nt get any answer. As I was wondering, I found your post as a caution. Thank you very much for sharing this information
while in another one Omar Hassane will say
I have also attended a WASET conference in Dubai and got the idea quickly. If your paper is worthy DO NOT waste it by publishing it on WASET journals. They are not professional journals neither the conferences have anything to do with science. Anyone can publish anything in WASET. No reviews... When I sent an article for publication, it has been accepted the next day without any comments!!! SO if you want just to publish... WASET may help you but if you are a researcher with a worthy background and a professional, just don't look at WASET.
n8 December 2013 at 12:08 did any one attend the conference anywhere? I have a conference at Paris on dec 30-31 2013. I am hesitant to pay and travel and then find nothing over there.
can anyone help?
Omar Hassanein8 December 2013 at 12:09 did u actually go to the conference?
can you tell me more about it? Amanda Wills9 December 2013 at 11:20 Omar, A few people here have commented that they have attended WASET conferences, see Christos's comment above and Hector's below. It seems that the conferences DO run, but that they are very low quality and include a lot of papers which are of no relevance to your subject. Tahani Farah13 February 2014 at 22:37
Hello, I have a Waset conference in Istanbul on 17-18 February, and I'm hesitant, because I doubt that it is a scam, the problem that the members of WASET gives us an address of hotel saying that this event will take place there, whereas members of the hotel say that this is not the case!
Last year I attended a WASET conference in London, it surprised me how fast I got my paper accepted but I wasn´t suspecting any fraud, however, when I attend the conference I was very disappointed, I arrive on time for registration and there was only one person starting to unpack some materials for the conference (there wasn´t any signal regarding the conference in the hotel), when the conferences started I was very surprised as they were about a wide range of topics (the conference was about sustainable agriculture), all in all it was a very unpleasant experience for me as it was only the second time I presented a paper in an international conference and I put a lot of effort (and money) on it.
Héctor Sandoval
Google: IEEE Fake Conferences,
Google: WASET Fake Conferences,
Google: ACM Fake Conferences,
Google: SIAM Fake Conferences,
Some comments against WASET Fake and Bogus Conferences
Few days before, I attended WASET conference in Barcelona. I felt guilty of my self my wasting my important paper for it. Its broad. no reviews..in a very small room, people are presenting. I don't know why I submitted it...There were around 50 papers accepted. (probably all submitted papers) Just a half day sessions... Researchers-from Japan
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I sent a paper to WASET in 2011, which they published in issue 80 of the year. However, I cannot locate the article again in their website presently. It is amazing because I did not pay a dime for the publication. Could it be a scam?
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I'm not sure that they are a scam as such, more that they are just extremely low quality conferences and journals. Ok, if you fancy a bit of academic tourism, but no good if you are hoping to further your career. That's just my opinion though :)
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Oh no.. I just came across your website and I am attending a WASET conference in Malaga later on 28-29 November. I hope all goes well. This is bad... I spent so much time writing the paper and so much money to register and fly there. :(
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Could you let us know how it goes in Malaga? I think it's helpful to hear from people who have actually attended these conferences. I hope it goes well for you...
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The conference did go on but it is definitely of low quality. There were only 4 papers submitted for the conference that I registered for and only 2 presenters turned up. The conference hotel was also changed at the last minute. The administrator for the conference was also dubious. He claimed that he is a professor but refused to provide any name cards or official email address.
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That's sounds awful. Thanks for coming back and sharing this with us and I'm so sorry to hear that your hard work was not rewarded by attending a good conference.
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I am also one of those who felt chearted by WASET. they are definitely low quality confrences, poor organization, conference rooms packed - they are small. In Paris in June we had to walk across the street to get our lunch as s result all the afternoon sessions were late and poorly attended. they are only good for academic tourists!
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We register for a WASET conference, but until the last minute, they send us an email to say that they have not revieve our registration fees. I contact the hotel where the conference must take place they say that they have not informations about this event. We was confused and decide to give up. It's an adventure to go to a country and you are not sure that the conference will take place or not.
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I have been wondering if WASET is a real thing. I was looking at the Chemical and Material Engineering conference however got a bit confuse why there are many similar conference in each year in different countries. I am so glad to read this comment. Thanks so much for exposing the scam.
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Does anyone know how I could remove my paper from the WASET website? the conference is in two days, i did not pay the registration fees and i would like to withdraw my paper should i contact them telling them i will not attend?
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I would contact them and ask them to remove your paper, although I wouldn't be surprised if you don't hear back! Mary Anne
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I just posted elsewhere in the blogosphere re: my concerns that this very morning I was told by WASET that I am NOT presenting afterall at the May 16/17 "conference" in Amsterdam for "International Nursing Informatics Conference" which didn't feel right from the start. My three papers were accepted very quickly, if memory serves, not enough time elapsed to give it a proper review. I only learned this this very morning (Saturday April 26th) and despite what I and the credit card company say--there WAS clearance/authorization to charge the very expensive meeting registration to my credit card (about $900 U. S. money), WASET says I am not registered so cannot present. Upset earlier today that my time and effort and hopes were invested, I seem to be quickly changing to disappointment that I was 'taken' mixed with gratitude that it isn't too late for me to cut some losses on the travel arrangements for this, my working vacation, cancelling Amsterdam altogether and continuing instead to use my precious time off for my attached real vacation with family in Ireland. Anyone, should I cut my losses/forgetting about Amsterdam and WASET because its' either totally fake or of poor quality? I am senior in my field of nursing administration here at home and an identified scholar with a satisfactory set of publications and scholarly work which I can continue another way-will find different homes for my publications....is this what I should do?
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I'm sorry to hear about your experience. As to what to do, if I were you, I would cut my losses, unless I particularly wanted a holiday in Amsterdam! From what others have said, even if the conference goes ahead, it would seem that the programmes are very random and I doubt it would be of much use to you professionally. Good luck and I hope you enjoy your holiday in Ireland!
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It seems that WASET aren't the only events to watch out for. There's an interesting article on Australian Mining about Australian Industry and Lifestyle Exhibitions consistently postponing their mining exhibitions: http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/features/australian-industry-and-lifestyle-exhibitions-mini
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I Have decided to continue to Amsterdam for a more pure vacation experience as the fees to make changes for flights are unreasonable. I, of course, will not be presenting (I did not pay a registration fee) but had I not figured this out two days ago (that WASET is a scam!), I would have shown up at the appointed time and place in Amsterdam, trying to insist, if you will, that I should be allowed to present...and pay at the door...as the WASET site indicates you could. I, of course, would pay with credit card which is where the revelation seems to occur for some: that you canNOT pay by credit card at all (people would have a recourse) and the bloggers here indicate that they were taken (some anyway) by wiring money (I assume no/little recourse for the individual). It has been suggested to me that I show up at the conference to 'take names' perhaps try to register for the conference, see what happens. Maybe report to hotel management and/or local police. Trouble is, I suspect all will say no crime per se, just poor quality, questionable business practices and low integrity. I am not beyond showing up to learn ....because I will be in town and its just a cab ride away. The meeting notice as of today 4.28 http://www.waset.org/conference/2014/05/amsterdam/ICNI/program indicates there are 134 presenters in about 3 diff exhibit halls which seems like a pretty large crowd. The conference is at: NH Naarden Hotel IJsselmeerweg 3 1411 AA Naarden The Netherlands I plan to call in the morning to engage them in discussion. I do not intend to make it my life's work to bring these people to justice; but i am motivated enough to explore writing for publication on the matter of "predatory open-access publishing" or "predatory scholarship" which are the terms I recently learned, since Saturday. Who has a suggestion for me if I go to the hotel? Talk to the 'organizer'/gather evidence? Talk to the other attendees...others on this blog indicate some of the meetings simply don't 'go' while some get moved to a different venue? I have internet access while away, I leave Friday. If I do write for publication, are my keywords ok as per just above?
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I am in a WASET conference held in Copenhagen right now. I admit that acdemically it is not a very high quality conference. In this session there are presentations in different subjects but all categorized under social sciences and humanities .
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Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to complain on the quality of the conference that I have attended recently in Istanbul. Overall for me, this was the worst conference that I have ever joined since becoming an academician. Poor management on tentative and facilities have caused a lot of problem during the program. On top of that, the participants are pooled from wide different background and being registered under different conference name. Therefore, the discussion become more general and presenters need to clarify the topics in details which not supposed to be. It is undeniable that this is the low quality profit based conference organizer and attempts to easily extract the money from the conference fees. In return, the participants attended poor quality program and being given cheap printed proceeding and pouch. I am distributing this information to all colleagues and friends to ban any program organized by WASET. Thank you
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I have both attended WASET one conference, submitted and published an abstract and paper there, and have reviewed several papers for them this spring. It is true that the conference was small, held in several rooms with several tracks, but the people who attended had done real work, some of it rather good, and they tended to be from countries that have historically had a difficult time publishing in western journals. I have published in "good"mainstream journals before myself also. It is a peer reviewed system, they have many of these conferences and it is possible to go and just have a vacation in an interesting place. However, for my purposes, I wanted to publish within my first year in a new place, starting from scratch, and WASET enabled me to do that. I also met junior scholars who were learning how to present and publish and who got good feedback on their work at this conference. They did feed us within the conference with hearty lunches, and at the end also took us to lunch at a decent restaurant that was NOT a chain (this conference was in NYC, which I know well from living and working there, and the restaurant was one that had an "A" from the NYC Board of Health, and, one that even though it is in a touristy part of town near Penn Station, was very acceptable) for further conversation. Our host was a long time professor in one of the local NYC universities. The persons who reviewed my abstract were polite, and persistent, and they did make comments (and I had to change the format repeatedly to get it into the online system). I realized when I went to the conference that it was because the booklet contained full papers, and you are meant to submit papers that are camera ready for review and commentary because once they are accepted they apparently go into the conference booklet, which then counts as a publication. While I will grant that WASET conferences are not like the big professional science conferences that many of you may have gone to they have a definite niche, and serve a purpose. I would not be so quick to denigrate what they do - everyone needs to start somewhere, and some people might be a bit overwhelmed going to IEEE, or AAAS, or ACSB, or any of a number of larger, professional conferences with a bit less hand holding. And, you do get your work out there - since I can remember publishing at a time when little cards from people all over the world would arrive requesting a copy of your paper (which was exciting ! But, took a long time from submission to publication) the WASETs of the world can serve a purpose that is helpful.
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I am a PhD student and, unfortunately, my collegue and I have been victim of this fake conference. We were looking for a conference about vaccines and vaccination and we decided to join the ICVV 2014 in Rome, the "International Conference of Vaccines and Vaccination" organized by Waset. When the congress program was available (only less than one week before the conference) we noticed that the list of abstracts and posters did not reflect the topics we were interested in and that were promoted in the flyer on Waset website. We tried many times to ask an explanation but, obviously, they didn't answered (the only way to contact them is by mail). After that we looked up for other conferences organized by Waset in the same period and city. What we noticed was that there were many conferences with different names and topics planned on the same day and at the same place of the ours. Unfortunately, we have wasted money that we would have wanted to put in our education.
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I have attended a WASET 'conference'. I believe the organisers are fraudulent in their advertising of the event. The same 'conference' is advertised under several different scientific specialities, ranging from remote sensing, to genetic and molecular engineering, business, statistics etc. so people applying to attend or present are lead to believe that the conference is in their specialist field and the audience will be a collection of their peers. What actually happens is that all these specialities are clumped into the same conference!! And you are lucky if you get even one talk on the subject of the conference you actually applied for. You are given a certificate of attendance stating that you have participated in a conference about a certain subject. This is blatantly false. I did not present. Those that did present, I thought had good quality research. However I am concerned that if state in their CV's that they have presented at a WASET conference or had their work published in the WASET journal, it could be detrimental to their careers. The organisation was well below what I have experienced in every other conference I have attended. The computer provided did not work, presentations that were sent to be downloaded to the website were not there, and the number of speakers far outweighed the time allocated for them to speak.
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Thank you all for bringing up the WASET "conferences"! As PhD student, I found an interesting conference coming in London, sent an abstract and got it "peer reviewed" in 3 days. The acceptance email came from waset.org -address and I became suspicious. I googled WASET, and one of the first pages I found was this blog. Thanks to you, I withdraw my abstract and send it to another conference organized by well-known international association.
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Hello there, thank God I googled and stumbled upon this blog. I had sent my paper to Waset Conf scheduled on feb 2015 in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia and had been accepted within a week. But was a bit confusing when I received no reviews, that is obviously weird. I was planning to go, but recently stumbled upon a list of journals and publishers that are banned from Ministry of Higher Education in my country, and Waset happens to be one of them! Then i googled and this entry confirms it. Tq. How do we withdraw our paper from the conf?
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Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences. DeLinn, I don't know how you withdraw a paper, I have had no success in contacting the organisers myself. Maybe just email them and tell them you are withdrawing it and then consider it withdrawn and submit it somewhere else?
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My experience is more positive but ... I attended the ICLL 2014 (language learning) in Oslo. We were lucky - the conference was held in the announced hotel (we booked accommodation in another, cheaper hotel), papers were published in the International journal of social, management, economics and business engineering - but probably this is an online journal WITHOUT ISSN or ISBN.
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It's sad that many researchers are tricked into giving money to fraudsters... Since you mention the International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks (ICANN) in the article, here is an announcement made by the European Neural Network Society (ENNS) about the fake conference with the same acronym "organized" by Waset: http://e-nns.org/2014/10/warning-about-fake-conference-on-neural-networks/
http://e-nns.org/2014/10/warning-about-fake-conference-on-neural-networks/
I just attended the WASET conference today in Venice. It is a completely fake conference. There were 41 seats in a hotel room. In total fewer than 15 people attended., and the topics presented are not in the same area at all. The organisation only intends to cheat people to pay. The key issue for people who have suffered from the fake conferences is to let WASET fall.
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WASET announced that the conference is on 13-14 November 2014 in Venice. However, the so-called "conference" is located in Mestre, which is a sober and dirty town nearby Venice. Very dishonest and completely miss-leading! The only goal of the organisor is to cheat people, as many as possible, in order to get higher profit. WASET does not care about any content of the conference. Is there any possibility to sue WASET?
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I submitted a paper to WASET conference in London 28-29/2014 and the review I received only recommended to change format to their template, nothing factual! Given the fact the paper contained numerous mistakes (as reviewers from an impacted non-WASET journal remarked), I wonder if somebody reviews it for WASET at all...for 450 EUR, supposed to be in a mediocre hotel in Wembley, this is clearly not worth the money, so I didnt pay. Michal
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I am very sad with what I have just read... I was accepted to the conference in London on January 19th-20th in 2015. I was going to pay my fee right now when I found the blog and discovered WASET is fake! I have no words to say how sorry I am. I had worked on my paper for months! Has anyone heard about the London Conference in 2015? Thank you for the warning...
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Although my article was accepted by the Waset within 2 days after submitting, I did not pay the fee and participate in the conference, because I read this blog. Thank you very much everyone. But, I visited the venue to check the situation in Thailand on 18th - 19th December. The Waset's international conference was held at the small floor of Amari Hotel, in which there was no guide plate and flag with conference name in the hotel including the floor. Therefore it was difficult for me to find the conference hall and reception. Finally, I confirmed the conference with a receptionist. There were several participants in the floor in front of the reception, but they went to somewhere without participation in the ongoing session. Actually, I took some photos. This was first time for me to see the conference without any notice board in the venue.
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I really appreciate all you guys for sharing such useful experiences, I decided to participate WASET conference to be held in San Fransisco on Jun 2015 and was a little suspicious to the committee members as all were working on completely irrelevant fields, then I searched and found this page, this is really beneficial for every researcher, thanks
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