How should I respond to an offer to pay a bribe for authorship fraud?

Question

I received an email:

I write this letter on behalf of authors seeking to co-publish. We have seen your previous works and they were considered to be of high quality. Therefore, I offer you a co-publishing partnership. Our clients wish to buy positions in scientific articles that are in line with their research interests. As our partner, you can offer us a position or two in your work.

How should I respond to this request to bribe me? Is it permitted to sell coauthorships?

Your email client probably has a "Junk" folder. It is useful for such things. Or, if it comes from a university domain, forwarding it to some authority there might be fun. Or, you could write some nonsense paper and create an untraceable alter-ego as author and offer.... , well, no, probably not. — Buffy, Oct 20 '20 at 10:56
Meta discussion about this question: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4812/20058 — Massimo Ortolano, Oct 20 '20 at 16:51

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 20 '20 at 10:27

8

Never accept a payment for coauthorship. A payment for coauthorship would be an unethical bribe.

Never add a coauthor to a publication who has not met the criteria for authorship that is accepted in your field of research. Falsely listing a coauthor is fraud and unethical.

If you receive an offer like this by email, delete it without responding. Do not send your financial information to strangers on the internet. Presume the email is part of an advance fee fraud scheme.

answered Oct 20 '20 at 10:27

Anonymous Physicist

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Did you ask and answer your own question? – Well... Oct 20 '20 at 15:20
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@Well Note that answering one's own questions is specifically accepted and encouraged. – Massimo Ortolano Oct 20 '20 at 16:25
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How is this different to universities, e.g., from the middle east, who have well-known Profs on their payroll, where the condition is that the university name be included in all papers published by these Profs? – Prof. Santa Claus Oct 20 '20 at 18:30
@Prof.SantaClaus I'd say it's pretty similar but a lot more blatant. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/47505/what-should-you-do-if-a-co-author-has-an-unethical-affiliation – Anonymous Physicist Oct 21 '20 at 00:32

How should I respond to an offer to pay a bribe for authorship fraud?

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