In February, Evgenios Agathokleous, an environmental resources researcher at Nanjing University in China, asked Prime Scholars’ European Journal of Experimental Biology to retract a 2023 article that listed him as the sole author. In his email to the journal, he said he had never seen the paper and asked the journal to remove it and publish a formal retraction notice.

Two days later, a Prime Scholars representative named Nina responded, telling Agathokleous “your article has already been successfully published in our journal in accordance with the company’s publication norms and policies.” Nina then asked Agathokleous to pay 519 euros, which they said “covers the costs associated with publication handling, indexing preparation, and database maintenance.” Agathokleous refused, and hasn’t heard from the publisher since, despite repeated attempts to get the journal to retract the article.

In 2022, Prime Scholars published articles in its British Journal of Research it claimed were written by William Faulkner, Walt Whitman and Charlotte Brontë, among other literary legends. Those articles remain online. The journal is listed in Cabells’ Predatory Reports, along with 50 other Prime Scholars publications, for violations of its criteria on peer review, among others.

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2026/04/01/european-journal-experimental-biology-fee-demand-prime-scholars/

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