How to Report a Predatory Conference (and Why It Helps)

You spotted it in time, or you learned the hard way. Either way, once you know a conference is predatory, reporting it is one of the most useful things you can do. The next researcher who receives that flattering invitation will search the name, and what they find (or fail to find) decides whether they get caught too. Here is where and how to report, and how to make your report actually count.

Why reporting matters

Predatory conferences survive on obscurity. Each one depends on reaching people who have not heard the warnings yet. A single public, searchable report breaks that. It turns a private bad experience into a warning that protects everyone who checks afterwards. You are not complaining. You are closing the trap.

Where to report

Report in more than one place so the warning is easy to find:

• On Confira. If the event is listed, use the report option to flag it; if it is not, you can still submit a report through our reporting page. We moderate every report and, once confirmed, it lowers the event's trust score and appears to anyone checking that conference.
• To your institution. Research offices and libraries often keep internal watchlists and warn staff and students. Your report helps them.
• To the wider community. Field-specific forums, mailing lists, and scholarly networks are where peers look first.
• To the platform that carried the invitation. If it came by email, mark it as spam so the provider learns the pattern.

What makes a report useful

A vague "this seems like a scam" is weak. A specific, factual report is strong and hard to dismiss. Include what you can:

• The exact conference name, year, and website URL.
• What happened: an unsolicited invitation, instant acceptance, a fee tied to publication, a speaker who denied involvement.
• Evidence: screenshots of the invitation, the acceptance email, the fees page, or the speaker list.
• Dates. When you were contacted and what was claimed.

Stick to what you observed and can show. Facts are more persuasive, and safer, than accusations.

What happens after you report on Confira

We review each report by hand rather than publishing automatically. This protects real events from bad-faith flags and keeps the signal trustworthy. When a report is confirmed, the event's trust score drops, the warning becomes visible to anyone checking it, and repeated confirmed reports flag the event clearly. If you also noticed your name or a colleague's on the speaker list without consent, flag that too; an unwilling speaker is one of the strongest signals there is.

The bigger picture

Reporting is quietly powerful because it compounds. One report helps one searcher today; a body of reports makes a whole category of fraud visible and searchable. If a predatory conference cost you time, money, or your name, the best response is to make sure it costs its next target nothing, because they searched first and found your warning.

*Spotted a predatory conference? Report it on Confira so the next researcher is warned.*