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Our group submitted an article to a prestigious journal and while under review, we received an email from a most probably "predatory" journal, basically saying that your article can be published immediately after you pay the fee.

What makes me worry is that they somehow know the topic and abstract. Should I contact our current journal and mention it?

I suspect one reviewer leaked the article. Unfortunately, I am afraid it might negatively affect our current submission. None of the authors leaked the article online.

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    Has your article been posted as a preprint anywhere?
    – Anyon
    Commented Nov 7 at 12:46
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    No, it has never appeared in any form online. Also before we were rejected from another journal and after that we changed the abstract. This “predatory” journal has an updated abstract.
    – nArA
    Commented Nov 7 at 12:52
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    Just because it’s easy to miss this possibility of an easy answer (as to what happened): Have you tried searching the Internet for your paper’s title?
    – Wrzlprmft ♦
    Commented Nov 7 at 13:06
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    Yes, I just tried. No results
    – nArA
    Commented Nov 7 at 13:51
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    Some journals will automatically upload a preprint to a website called Research Square if you check (and maybe if you neglect to uncheck) the appropriate box during submission. It seems unlikely to me, but is it all possible that something like that might have happened? See: editage.com/insights/…
    – Adam Přenosil
    Commented Nov 7 at 14:47

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Assuming there's nothing wrong on your end (e.g. a computer virus), this is extremely unusual. There's something wrong with the process (a hacker?), or perhaps an editor/reviewer is in breach of peer review confidentiality guidelines. Both are serious. I'd definitely want to investigate this as the editor or the publisher.

If I were you, I'd contact the journal. It's not likely to negatively affect your submission - the issue is completely unrelated to the merits of your paper, after all.

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You could thank the journal for their interest and ask how they learned of your paper. You probably won't learn anything. You already understand that a submission to a predatory journal is poor practice.

You could inform the editor of the journal you submitted to that somehow a predatory journal has learned of your paper and has made an offer that you won't be accepting. Just indicate that you thought the editor should know. If the editor is ethical and competent, I doubt that it will affect your submission. Don't make accusations of leaks by reviewers.

I don't however, see a need to contact the current editor.

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  • Thank you, we will probably leave it like this without contacting the current editor. I wasn’t trying to directly accuse the reviewers, it just doesn’t seem to be another way that another journal knows the abstract. Maybe its due to lack of submission experience, i don’t know how it is possible without reviewers being involved.
    – nArA
    Commented Nov 7 at 13:00
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    Perhaps one of your co-authors had a conversation with someone outside your group about your work and that other person is the problem. Lots of possibilities.
    – Buffy
    Commented Nov 7 at 13:02

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