Thursday, June 16, 2011

Academic spam from Dr Yao Lu

I have just received this spam which looks very authentic and for a split second took me in. However, when you start to look into this, it is a nasty trick aiming to do you out of money. If you are an academic that gets a similar email, ignore it - do not even reply to it as it confirms your email as an active address.

""Dear Dr. Sarah Stewart,

On behalf of the organizing committee, I'm pleased to invite you to The 2nd International Community Healthcare & Healthcare Management Summit, which will be held on August 5-7, 2011 in Shanghai, China.

We would like to welcome you to our Conference as our valuable speaker and present your recent work and ideas of Get a second life! that were published in Pract Midwife. Please visit our website at www.epsglobal.ca & www.epsworldlink.com/en for program details.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sincerely,

Yao Lu, MD, PhD

Executive Chair of The 2nd International Community Healthcare & Healthcare Management Summit
President of EPS Global Medical Development Inc.
Suite 305, 1625 De Maisonneuve Ouest Montreal, Quebec H3H 2N4 CANADA

TEL: 1-514-933-4119
FAX: 1-514-933-9519

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

How can you tell, Sarah? I wouldn't have known! Do share...

M-H said...

It looks like a legitimate organisation that runs conferences to me. Where is the scam? I must be missing something! :)

Sarah Stewart said...

It looks very realistic but when I tracked it I could not actually find the conference. Instead what I found was a large number of conferences on all sorts of topics in the same place, on the same day. I also found a blog collecting data about this. At best, it is spam that should be ignored. At worse, people have sent their registration money but there hasn't actually been a conference to go to.

It certainly isn't an all-expenses trip to be a key-note speaker in China which would have been great...OK...I can dream can't I??!!

Anonymous said...

I was surprised when i got the same invitation today and wanted to check it out first and was surprised...my paper which the invite mentioned is nearly 10 years old, ( my recent work?) and could hardly be of interest to any one in the field...besides how the good Dr came by the paper he did not say...I thought he might be soliciting medical tourism at best

KJF said...

Hallo Sarah, I was surprised to receive a similar "invitation" by Dr Y. Lu. I shall contact you by e-mail to obtain your opinion. KJF

Anonymous said...

Emails from Dr. Yao Lu are not spams. It is really degrading that some one says these kinds of Things without knowing the facts. I have been to two of these conferences organised by EPS global corporation. Not only is the organisation authentic but also it is a multinational organisation, of which details can be found at epsglobal.ca. Sarah, you should apologise for starting such a blog.

Sarah Stewart said...

Thank you, anonymous, for your comment. Of course, I have no way of verifying what you've said is true because you're anonymous.

I would be very happy to take my words back if I could find any evidence of the conference that I was invited to. All I could find was a website that had lots of conferences in the same place on the same day, which is suspicious in itself. I have looked extensively at the various conferences that are advertised. The registration brochures look very official but there is little or no information about the conference program such as who the speakers are, how to submit an abstract etc. The only information I have found on various registration forms is how to send my money....and that is for conference in a few weeks...so there is no reason why a program would not be available.

I am very sorry if I have inaccurately maligned someone. Maybe the problem is that the conferences are poorly organized and advertised. In the meantime, I am keeping my money in my purse.

Tomé, MC said...

I also received it and found really strange, because what was mentioned was a paper that is 10 years old. I would be very happy to be a "valuable speaker", but... "no conference" means "not to go to".
Thank you, Sarah !

Ray said...

Hi... I just want to validate your thought that this is spam... I got an email today inviting me to a conference in Nanjing on epilepsy, here is a quote
"We are very interested in your article Cse4 Is Part of an Octameric Nucleosome in Budding Yeast that is published on Molecular Cell . This article includes some novel conceptions, which may impress the global experts in your field. The EPS Nanjing International Forum on Epilepsy will present an excellent opportunity to introduce your article to the global scientists and physicians, highlighting the great significance of your research achievements. You will enjoy the casual and interactive settings of this meeting." This is funny because that is work I did in grad school in yeast, and I dont know many epileptic yeast! It is completely bogus and glad you caught on...

Anonymous said...

I am afraid that I am one of those who has been caught out by this. I have travelled to Montreal from Europe for a conference on renewable energy. I just got the speaker list today and it is clearly just an assembly of anyone who was foolish enough to attend. Even the title of the conference has changed since advertised. I am quite embarassed about my foolishness for having been caught out here, but I must warn oters about this that it is fake. I guess that most academics will hide their embarassment and not alert others. I know that this is anonymous, but I would be happy to post the speaker list and people could see for themselves the fact that there is no scientific theme and no adbisory committee or editorial committee. Stay clear

Anonymous said...

This conference has been successfully held. It is an educational meeting, and I enjoy it.

Anonymous said...

Dear All,

I am so glad to have found your blog with all your comments. We also got contacted for a conference in Turkey. However we thought the request was rather short-term (4 weeks to go)and there was no speaker list, participant list or anything like that available. When I tried calling EPS - I only reached a Chinese, who barely understood or spoke English. I sent an email afterward and got a nicely written reply back, but everything points to being fake...

"Thank you very much for your interest in the 2011 Turkey International Clinical Pharmacology and Rational Clinical Medication Forum, which will take place from September 9th to 11th, 2011 in the beautiful, sunny city of Tekirdag, Turkey. For some unpredicted reasons, Dr. Cengiz Mordeniz has decided to resign from the Executive Chairman of the 2011 Turkey International Experimental Anesthesiology Forum (2011 TIAF). Consequently, this forum will be hosted independently by EPS Global Medical Development Inc. (EPS), and Dr. Yao Lu, the president of EPS, is appointed as the Executive Chairman. The name of 2011 Turkey International Experimental Anesthesiology Forum has been accordingly changed into that of 2011 Turkey International Modern Medical Forum (2011 TIMF), which includes the session of Clinical Pharmacology and Rational Clinical Medication. Attached is the new program file. I will ask my staff in China to send you the participant list.

We are proud of being given the precious opportunity to provide a high-quality organizing of this important international event, and sincere and hospitable services. Having abundant experience in organizing and co-organizing international academic conferences, we are confident that this forum will be a high-profile international medical event.

It is important to have you in Tekirdag, sharing your prestigious works and findings to counterparts all around the world. We believe that there will be plenty of opportunities of collaboration and cooperation.[...]

Semire said...

Dear All,

These invitations are not spam. I joined the exact forum and it was about 200 scientist speaker from all over the world. It was a high quality forum and each scientist have presented original work in different areas. The forum was held in five star silverside otel in Tekirdağ Turkey. Everything was really excellent. The participation fee I paid at the registration desk of the forum. For more information you may contact me from e-mail below.

semireuzun1@yahoo.co.uk

Regards

Dr. Semire Uzun

Anonymous said...

This is a spam. I have been invited to present same paper in four different conferences they organized and seems totally in different topics.

Anonymous said...

Please don't fall for this. A quick look at their website will show that these are not legitimate conferences. Even conferences that have happened in the past have 'information coming soon' on the full program page.

It's a sure way to drop $700 or so (plus travel) for nothing.

John A Stewart said...

I was initially flattered to receive my invitation, but I was a bit skeptical: I do not often receive invitations to speak at conferences. The e-mail addressed me as DR. Stewart JA; I'm John A Stewart and not an MD or PhD. The dates given for the conference in the e-mail were Oct. 6-7 (I thought extremely short notice); the dates on their website for the conference were in mid-November. The conference title, "Emerging Trends in Higher Education," seemed a bit off for my paper on focused nurse-defibrillation training--not a "higher education" but rather a training topic. I was going to inquire whether, as a speaker, I would have to pay for conference registration, but this blog has answered that.

Smells like a scam to me. As an agnostic, I still want to say thank God for the internet.

John

Anonymous said...

On September 16, I recently received a similar email forwarded from my old advisor. The email was addressed to me (author of the paper) but it was sent to the corresponding author (not me).

"On behalf of the organizing committee, I cordially invite you to participate in the 2011 EPS Montreal International Forum Emerging Trends in Higher Education being held in the beautiful and historic city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada on October 6-7, 2011..."

All the conferences I've ever been to had quite a bit more prep time than three weeks.

There is no other info online about this conference.

My paper was about bioengineering, not about emerging trends in higher education.

Seems really sketchy.

Anonymous said...

I have received a similar email yesterday, inviting me to speak in a neuro conference (which is not my area at all). The email look so real with all my published paper details.

I did return the email and try to clarify a few things. However, I am a bit scared now after reading the blog.

Anonymous said...

I have to agree with the scam part. I got two invitations one week apart to two different conferences held at the same time in the same location, but in quite different topics (Molecular Medicine vs. Infectious Diseases and Antibiotics) by the above mentioned Dr. Yao. The first email did not seem suspicious, but the second definitely did, since my paper is in clinical genetics and has nothing to do with infections.

Sarah Stewart said...

I have just had a second invitation for another conference in 3 weeks, based on the same article I wrote as for the first invitation. I cannot even see the conference on the website. Anyway, this time I have written back and asked if they can confirm if I get my flights and accommodation paid...which I would expect as a key note speaker. I'll let you know what reply I get.

Sarah Stewart said...

Well, blow me down...I've had yet another email today to another of my email addresses, asking me to attend yet another conference based on an article I wrote. When I tracked the email, I found it is coming from a spamming address: http://emarketing.easyedm.com/public/o5uf/yug/profile/14685131/jXTy9Yu

Elif gece said...

Hi Sarah,
Thank you for starting for such a blog. I have recived the same invitation from EPS montreal Canada on Emerging Trens ...... as a speaker for my recent article. Since the invitation is skecthy I searched on the web to find some information about this meeting and find your blog. At the beginning they caught me.
I ask them if they cover any of the expenses such as registration fee. Couple days later they responded and they say they can not cover for expenses but they are asking for my CV and an abstract. But I will ignore from now on. But I wonder if anything can not be done about this kind of spams.
Elif

Sarah Stewart said...

Hi Elif, there's nothing we can do about this sort of spam apart from delete it as soon as it arrives.

Dr.P.Udhayakala said...

Dear Dr.sarah stewart,
Thanks for your alert, even I received a same sort of email from Dr.Yao lu.And no other details found regarding this conference except sending registration fee.

Dr.P.Udhayakala said...

Dear Dr.sarah stewart,
Thanks for your alert, even I received a same sort of email from Dr.Yao lu.And no other details found regarding this conference except sending registration fee.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I have also received the same email today to attend the conference in Montreal during the 6-7 October, very short notice I thought, but I am glad I found your blog before contacting this people and wasting my time.
Have a nice day

Anonymous said...

thanks a lot - I was about dreaming of a nice trip to China and becoming an important key note speaker - forget about it!

Sveta said...

Sveta said

Dear Sarah,
there is looked like just badly organized conference, I;ve just reseived same invitation refering to my best article.
Glad to meet you in our conference of victims !

Pilar Pazos said...

Sarah,
Yet another case for your blog. I just received an invitation saying: "to participate in the 2011 EPS Montreal International Forum Emerging Trends in Higher Education being held in the beautiful and historic city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada on November 19-20, 2011."
This seemed quite strange considering my paper is not on education and is 4 years old. I did a quick search and found your blog, thanks for that!!
Anyway, I am erasing the email and I hope others get to find this as I did.

Martin Vermeer said...

Got the invitation to Montreal today, and immediately googled for the organizer (as it seemed fishy) and bingo. Thanks Sarah.

There are several other operations like this. The giveaways usually are

- the lack of a concrete programme
- babble about getting together
- babble about leasure time at the venue

...and of course in this case, the literal citation of some paper published a while ago.

Niels said...

Dear All,

It seems that we could all meet and have a conference on our own subject - I also received this email, but found it bogus as the link did not go to the right place, no speaker list, short notice, no advisory committee, i.e. nothing of the sort you'd normally expect... Well, Montreal is a nice place, but not this time :-)

Cheers,
Niels

TM Copenhagen said...

Hi Everybody

This is indeed funny - I have received at least 6 invitations to conferences held by EPS and Dr. Yao Lu all over the world during the last 6 - 8 months. I have been invited to Montreal, China, Sweden and latest Amalfi in Italy. As all of you I was invited as a valuable speaker but had to hold every costs myself! I googled Dr. Yao Lu today and found this page as the first and I have laughed all the way home from work - I could have been me with my suitcase in Montreal feeling really proud and honored - poor guy, who took the chance but I just couldn't help laughing. What a joke. It's going to be interesting to see in which way the story turns - have never seen this kind of Scam before :) Thank you Sarah Stewart to raise this blog before we all are making ourself foolish and close to ignorant.
T. Møller Copenhagen Denmark

Dr. Buddhadev said...

I also received similar invitation by EPS Montreal International Forum Emerging Trends in Higher Education will be held in November 19-20, 2011 in Montreal, Canada.
I along with few colleagues got same message.
Thanks for your alert and we checked it and has found it is an HOAX

Thanks

DR RAJESH M BUDDHADEV
SURAT
INDIA

Dr. Buddhadev said...

I also received similar invitation by EPS Montreal International Forum Emerging Trends in Higher Education will be held in November 19-20, 2011 in Montreal, Canada.
I along with few colleagues got same message.
Thanks for your alert and we checked it and has found it is an HOAX

Thanks

DR RAJESH M BUDDHADEV
SURAT
INDIA

Anonymous said...

Hi All,

I am on the same boat to Montreal for emerging... w/e. I am glad I found this blog before I take any actions about it. I really appreciate! Or we all could meet there and hang around, lol.

Dr. J. Lim.

Anonymous said...

Hi,
I got an invitation to the "2011 EPS Montreal International Forum Emerging Trends in Higher Education being held in the beautiful and historic city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada on November 19-20, 2011"

Thank you very much for this blog. Actually, my mentioned paper was published a month ago, so I thought that's why the invitation was so late. But it was still conspicious to be invited in the first place =P Especially to a meeting with such a topic.

Sarah Stewart said...

Hi everyone, I getting at least 1 email per week inviting me to a conference from this marketing company. The last email I received actually has an 'unsubscribe' facility so hopefully I won't receive these annoying marketing emails any more.

Gine said...

Dear Sarah, thank you for this blog. Me, I am also part of all those most important and wonderful scientists invited every week to another meeting by Dr. Yao Lu and his EPS organisation.
To add something to the picture, please read this, I copied it from http://rmm257.blogspot.com/2010/07/spam-ference-in-china-anyone.html

Get this... I have received numerous conference speaker requests from this fraud. Moreover, for fun, I applied to one of his job openings as a 'manuscript editor'.... here was his response:

Dear (my name removed)

I have received your email/CV, gone through your CV and am satisfied you have the requirement to do this job. Yes this position can be occupied from a remote location.I will like to know what location you have in mind.

I am in the U.K now and will be coming back to Canada in some days from now.

I know it is improper for me to be asking you this favour but i am in dire need here.I mistakenly lost my hand bag here in the U.K that contains almost everything that can return me back home including my passport,ticket,cash,credit cards etc. I am kind of stranded and will need a short time loan from you (£1,500.00) to sort things out from here.

I will pay you back as soon as i am back to Canada after which we will arrange a meeting to conlcude on the modalities of the part time Manuscript editor job.

If there is a way you can help,i will be very greatful. I will be needing this help urgently. I will appreciate if you can send same amount via western union money transfer to me. I can use my driver's license to receive it

Receiver's name: Yao Lu
Address: London, U.K

If you find it in your heart to help with this kind gesture, send to my email, the sender's name, sender's address and Money transfer control number MTCN.

Once again accept my sincere apology for bothering you with this. Necessity knows no bounds and that is why i have asked for your help in this regards.

Regards
Dr. Yao Lu

Some physicist said...

I just got the same kind of email, and it also took me for one minute or so to stop imagining I would go to Italy for free. What I found strange is that my field of research (and the paper in question) has NOTHING to do with the conference, so why would I be keynote speaker of something nobody understands?? Clearly, it's a scam trying to make money out of registration fees.

Anonymous said...

To All: This is a spam. Legitimate conferences have well known organizers and academics. I also received such invitations for more than 5 papers I have published previously.

Anonymous said...

This is definitely a scam.
A European-based professor I know received a new invitation for a conference in Montreal in Feb. 2012. He asked me to check it out. EPS operates from an apartment at a residential building in Montréal (funny). When I called, I got a English speaking person who when asked where the conference will be held, he referred in Chinese to a lady he called a colleague. She confirmed that the conference is at the Holiday Inn Select. I called the hotel and they have no record of such a conference. My first warning signal: An organization based in Montreal that has an English only website, does all its communication in English cannot be genuine

Anonymous said...

I have been a victim of this too. I actually attended one of Dr.Yao Lu's conferences in china. Conference did take place but attended by about 30 people and everyone was a speaker. think of it- no speakers' list, no editorial board,no organising committee, no topics mentioned 4 weeks prior to conference! He makes money out of orgnaising these fake conferences. I still keep invited to his conferences to present the same paper!Is there a way to stop this guy?

Anonymous said...

March 24, 2012: I'm from Minneapolis and my boss has been bombarded with these invitations for some time now. I think EPS has wised-up and dropped that name (the references to the invitee's papers that have nothing to do with the subject of the conference have long since disappeared, as now has "Dr. Yao Lu"), although we continue to get invitations from them. The wording is similar (with, as Martin Vermeer describes, no concrete programme, babble about getting together, babble about the beautiful host city ...), but now the letters we get are ostensibly directly from some hospital or other in China (and now it's always China, never Canada, Italy, Turkey or anywhere else any more), although at the bottom of the e-letter in small grayish type you still see the address on Maisonneuve Ouest, and in the downloaded brochures there's a different Montreal address which looks incomplete (Dr. Shouwei Yang & Dr. Xiaohong Ran, [blank line], GERTRUDE 3551, Montreal H4G 1R4).

I still have the list of 2012 EPS conferences and would be curious to know if any of them are still being "held" (if enough suckers show up, and then they'll just change the topic), or even sending out invitations (6 weeks before the date) ☺ ? One of these supposed meetings (July 24-25, Montreal) has something to do with earthquake prediction, which my boss has been interested in lately, but what do I wanna bet it's off, if it was ever on in the first place?

Anonymous said...

Apr 4, 2012: Anonymous from Minneapolis again. We've gotten the same invitation to the Shanghai 2012 International Forum on Family Medicine *4 x* now! They have a brochure that you can download by clicking the link in the letter, they list topics (but no speakers and the meeting is a month away) and they're still charging all their "invited speakers" $700

Anonymous said...

Add me to the list ..... Just recieve an invitation in china in mid august ! As a valuable speaker! With my article already published in2009 ....
My question is why no body can stop these poeple ?
Thx for this blog
Dr.suhair al

Suita Carrano said...

this is for " Gine said..."
The email that you copied is a fraud probably not related to EPS Global or Yao Lu (that I know preety well and in person).
I got 3 or 4 similar "help requests " from some of my hotel's past guests (italians and foreigners including one Indian Lady actually over 80...) and finally found with the help of the Postal Police that is a new way of fraud as the ones coming from "Sister or wife of a past president of Oil Companies...".
Indeed it's better to double check when talking about money factor...
With regards of EPS Canada, they really host conferences and co-operate with some well known University worldwide.
Best regards
Suita Carrano
Ravello - Italy

Anonymous said...

Also add me to the list.. Just received an email from a Dr. Mengxiong Li inviting me to the Jingzhou 2012 International Conference on Respiratory Medicine in Jingzhou, China with a registration fee of $680. It appeared fishy so I decided to check out the Montreal address that appears at the bottom of the email and found that its for an apartment. I did further research and could not find the conference or reference to it and then I came upon this blog - thank you Sarah.

Anonymous said...

Add me to the list too...Just got an email from a Dr. Mengxiong Li inviting me to the 2012 International Conference on Respiratory Medicine to take place in 4 weeks at Jingzhou's First People’s Hospital in China with a registration fee of $680. It sounded fishy so I looked up the address that appears at the bottom of the email and it was for an apartment in Montreal. I did further research and could not find this conference or reference to it and then I came upon this blog - Thanks Sarah!

Anonymous said...

I also received an email from Montreal inviting me to a conference in Japan. Because I ever received the similar invitation from EPS, I found many comments said EPS meeting are fake and spam. I made an investigation and found EPS changed their website to www.worldlinkmed.com. They posted posted PDF program on this website, however, the website is always in maintenance. never available to open. Be careful! They change a new mask.

dayanganita said...

Dear Sarah,
Thanks for this topic. I just got an invitation to speak at a respiratory conference in China.
The pdf link is as below:
http://worldsciencenet.com/~scnet/pdf/JingzhouRespiratoryMedicine2012.pdf
Glad to learn I should ignore this. Thanks for posting this :)

Dayang Aziz

Sarah Stewart said...

Here's a question for you all. Does academic pride make us gulliable to schemes such as this?

guigui said...

hanetwo15It is all fake. I just came back from China where i was a guest spekaer at Dr. Yao LU Congress. There was 12 speakers each from different area of discipline ex: zoologist, psychiatrist, dentist and etc. There was NO AUDIENCE not even chinese . The only audience were guest speakers.The title of Congress was completely changed, of course which is typical for EPS company. SCAM SCAM just to take money. It is all business and has nothing to do with science. I dont think anybody wants to fly and pay for the airfare and etc just to stay in average Hotel offered By Dr. Yao LU in a most poluted town in China where sun does not come. Even photos of the Hospital were fake....moreover as a proof and source for future marketting DR . Yao LU staff was taking photos all day long. Moreover we found out from the Hospital staff , that our stay was paid by Hospital and Dr. Lu did not spend a dime.

psiloidus said...

EPS seem to "organize" these conferences also in India. I got an invitation to an international conference on the topic of integrated psychiatry and clinical psychology from a "Dr. Sagar Lavania". However, they made a couple of mistakes - which I won't reveal here, as perhaps "Dr. Lu" read this forum too ;) - so that you can figure out by a bit of googling that it these spams are also originated from EPS.

Unknown said...

Dear All.
I just received one from Dr. Mengxiong Li.
Thanks for the helpful posts.
Kind Regards,
Gareth.

Unknown said...

Dear All.
I just received one from Dr. Mengxiong Li.
Thanks for the helpful posts.
Kind Regards,
Gareth.

sanjaypre said...

Hi All,
I work at Yale and I received couple of emails from these guys about international collaborations. She wrote that she is from Chinese Science-technology exchange platform, and would like to collaborate and collaborate on scientific problems for mutual benefits. Then I got an email from Dr. Yao Lu.

Here is what Dr. Yao Lu said:

"I am the consultant of Xuzhou Third People's Hospital, and arrange for scientists to give lectures in China at some hospitals and universities for potential collaborations. Once having your specific dates for visit China and the scanned copy of your passport, I will send you the required documents (i.e. formal Invitation letter and lodging confirmation) for your visa application. Best regards"

All looks legit. They are offering money to do my research either here in USA or in China. And if I don't want want to do research, they are offering hefty money for me to be a consultant.

And I have been invited to china for 7 days, all expenses paid, and present my research work. I am not sure what to make of it.

creator said...

Dear SanJaypre

I have read your message, and I got a similar message . It is really very realistic and interesting, I am very keen to meet them in China and see for potentail collaborations (that is what really interest us all)
What was your experience after this message?
Thank you in advance

Brian Josephson said...

Yao Lu is a very common name, it seems, as a search will reveal, so you and Sarah may be referring to different people. I've met one of them with that name, following an invitation, and it all worked out.