Dear Ecologgers: I wanted to alert you all to a potential phishing effort in which I was recently involved.
Last week I was contacted by someone with an "epamail.epa.gov" email address about reviewing a manuscript written by someone whom I knew worked in the area of the supposed manuscript topic. In fact, I had corresponded with that person relatively recently. In the initial email, there was no contact information for the person requesting the review, other than the email address, there was no mention of the journal to which the manuscript had been submitted, but there was an offer of $100 for reviewing the manuscript. Text of that email (with identifying information removed) is here: ******************************** Gary, Your name was given to me by <AUTHOR> to ask if you would have the time to review his manuscript entitled "<TITLE>," by <AUTHORS>. If you are available to do the review, we can compensate you $100.00 for your time. Please advise me if this is agreeable to you. If so, I will send you a Conflict of Interest form which needs to be completed before the manuscript can be sent and I will also need a mailing address and telephone number in which to send the manuscript. Once I receive the Conflict of Interest form back from you I can put in a Purchase Req. and you will receive payment upon completion of the manuscript. Thank you and look forward to hearing from you, <PERSON REQUESTING THE REVIEW> ******************************** ******************************** I was a bit curious about this request so I responded that I would be willing to review in order to receive more information. I also specifically asked to what journal the paper had been submitted. The response from the requester was: ******************************** Gary, Thank you for agreeing to be a reviewer for <AUTHOR>'s manuscript. The journal he is considering for submission is Ecological Applications. At this time I need to forward to you the Conflict of Interest Form (see below) which you will need to fill out and return to me for the purpose of setting up payment once the review is completed and also, I'll prepare a copy of the manuscript and get it ready to mail to you. Again, thank you for your time and I'll let <AUTHOR> know you have agreed to review his manuscript. <PERSON REQUESTING THE REVIEW> ******************************** ******************************** Attached to that email was a simple form that included some text pasted from EPA guidelines about conflicts of interest for persons being paid on government contracts, a few lines to describe any potential conflicts of interest, and an area to provide my signature, date, and of course, social security number. The Editor-in-Chief of Ecol Apps has confirmed that they still do not pay for reviews, and my query to the requester of this review about why the journal changed their policies remains unanswered, as expected. The person requesting this review also is not listed among the editorial board for the journal. Gary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gary N Ervin, Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator Department of Biological Sciences PO Box GY Mississippi State, MS 39762 USA on the web at: http://www.msstate.edu/courses/ge14/ for parcel delivery: Department of Biological Sciences 114 Harned Biology 295 Lee Boulevard Miss State, MS 39762 Office: A212 HPCC Building Tel.: (662) 325-1203 lab : (662) 325-7937 FAX : (662) 325-7939 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
