Journal employees offering free publication in return for co-authorship and citations: is it a scam? Some of my colleagues and I got offers from employees  of some reputed journal (not from journal itself), to publish our research paper for free, if:


We include their name as co-author
We use 60%+ citation of their journal (Doesn't it add up to IF??)


In return:


It will be published completely free
They will give us discount of some sort for next publication


Is it may be some kind of scam?
This is a scam.

You are not the ones being scammed, however.  The editors are proposing to scam your readers, with your assistance, making you scammers as well.  Walk away before you damage your reputation.