So I got an invite for a conference; I didn’t send in an abstract or anything, so I a bit surprised they even knew my email adress. Anyway, they already put me in their program before I even replied. (which is super weird because a colleague messaged me “hey I saw you were also joining xx conference, awesome!”) But there is no travel reimbursement, but they have graciously decided that I only have to pay the academic participant fee of a measly 600 euros to attend.
Now before you start laughing at me (almost) falling for one of those predatory scam conferences, this is not one of those, it’s a real conference with a real venue and a real program.
But it still sounds like an obvious scam where they try to stroke your ego a bit and then let you pay and provide the content for their event. Is this normal in some fields? I am originally from medical biology / computational biology, and if you get invited there you can usually enter the event for free, and often they will also reimburse travel at least to some extent.
But this is more of a medical conference, is this considered normal in some fields?
Comments
It most likely is one of those scam conferences. Think about it: what kind of conference invites random people to present? If you were big enough of an academic to get invited for a keynote, they would pay for you to come.
A conference where you must pay for everything yourself (or from your research funds etc.) is…just a regular conference. This is the norm.
These “invitations” are not invitations. I can invite you to buy my house for $2 million. Or to mow my lawn. Pretty much every typical conference in the world provides an open invitation to submit something for consideration. Just because one emails you an “invitation” doesn’t make it different.
Oh…and real conferences with real venues and real programs can still be a scam, and those with these characteristics and sending “invitations” often are.
Not normal. In my field, we have to submit a 6-page paper, got through peer rewiew, revise to address feedback and resubmit, get final acceptance, resister, then travel to the conference to present on our expense. Keynote speackers are invited and their travel may be partially reimbursed, but those are pioneers in the field, people who everyone knows and respects. Most of them offer to pay for their travel through research grants.
This is the conference trying to get people to attend and pay to attend.
If you’re a keynote speaker or are giving a talk at a university, reimbursement is common. But if you’re just a session presenter, which this is, you pay.
Typically ppl submit an abstract for a workshop or something to present, and if it is accepted some costs are reimbursed/credited. The fact that u were scheduled to present without permission or discussion is extremely sus, and I get 10 of those emails a day because of my publication history.
I’d like to mention two things. In my field, it is pretty common for big venues think American Physical Society, chemical society etc. to invite you to be a speaker. These do not involve travel reimbursements or even waiving of the attendance fee. However, most of the time these speakers would be attending the conference anyways. What sounds scammy to me is that they already included you in the program. This is not done by any reputable organization.
IT IS a scam lol IT IS obvious. I get millions of These Mails lol
Could you also dm me the conference advertisement? I am really curious who organises a conference with these suspicious methods. Ask them how they got your contact details and how dare they to put you on the speakers list without your consent.
If they added you to the program without receiving your reply, it’s not a serious conference, scam or not.
I’m way more baffled by the fact they added you to the program before you responded. That is the strangest part of this, by far.
You can just respond with a thank you, list your speaker fee and ask whether they book your accommodations or they plan to reimburse you.
Sounds like a scam to me.
It doesn’t have to be a scam to have sketchy practices. Even MDPI is a legit science organization just with incredibly sketchy practices. Medical conferences are big money. Doctors have to meet a certain number of continuing education credits each year in order to keep their license and they often work for a place that will reimburse expenses. That means that conferences are often an excuse to get a vacation partially covered by your employer. They host them in vacation destinations and make it look really inviting to go there. So, since they are likely making money off of this conference, why aren’t they paying you? You’re doing a service for them.
So here are the questions you need to ask yourself. Can you afford it? Is it something that’s going to adequately increase your networking and CV/tenure journal for the price you would have to pay? Are you going to enjoy going? Is it worth visiting that location? You are under no obligation to go. Treat this like a business expense, is it worth it? Would it actually make an impact on your career?
Sounds predatory
As others have said, no legitimate conference will put you on the program before you’ve even accepted, let alone ask you to pay. Definitely a scam.
This is not a legitimate opportunity. Listen to your spidey sense.
Like others have said, two things smell wrong:
It sounds like “we want to profile your business in our magazine” – but much later in the email a fee is mentioned. Once you’ve mentally bought in.
In my experience there are four main types of corporate event speaker – and their reward ranges from nothing to six figure sums.
Academia might be different Ito the money – but for me the two things I listed above are NOT cool at best, hustled, or potentially scammed.
I wrote about them last week – it might help you. There’s a cool graphic in the article that a friend did for me too.
different types of speaker and what they get paid.
Scam.
Normal for my field
Absolutely normal in many fields. MRS, APS, ACS, TMS, etc, and many others across physical sciences. Only special small workshops or foundation-sponsored symposia would have the funds to pay for their invited speakers. Out of all my invited talks over the years I’d say less than 25% were covered. Not including invited colloquia of course.
But this is part of our job, and it’s still an honor to be invited and looks good on your CV. I’d also say that of all the conferences I’ve organized none of our invited speakers have come back asking for anything to be covered. This is the norm.
Sounds like a scam to me.
That’s a scam
I work for an organization that plans scientific conferences and this is not normal. It may not be a scam but it definitely is a poorly managed association at least.
Generally, the program committee recommends & reaches out to multiple people with experience in the field. Typically the potential speaker has a connection to someone on the committee. The planning team reaches out, which could explain why you’re not sure how they had your email (unless the person recommending prefers to do so).
Usually details about the conference, travel information and reimbursement process are provided in the first email, although it may be a high level overview initially.
Speakers usually don’t have to pay for travel, registration or lodging. Many groups give a per diem, but not all.
If I sent a request like that, I would expect to get laughed out of the room.
This is 100% a predatory conference. The biggest red flag is them adding you to the program without your consent – no legit conference does that. Even at real conferences where presenters pay their own way, they NEVER add people to the program without explicit permission and abstract submission/acceptance. Run away from this one!