How to handle a paper by a reviewer who wants to be paid? A reviewer declines to review a paper because he wants to be paid. Some time later, this reviewer submits a paper to the journal (or to another journal who's aware of what happened – very possible with today's editorial management systems). How should the journal handle this?

Possible options:


Pretend we didn't notice and review as normal.
Write him an email to tell him we're aware of it, but are reviewing the paper anyway because we're a magnanimous journal.
Charge him a submission fee which we then use to pay the reviewers for that paper only.
Charge him a submission fee which we then use to pay the reviewers for that paper only, plus some extras which we use to pay the editor.
Desk reject because "our reviewers are on strike because they're not paid so we can't find reviewers for your paper".


I'm concerned taking retributive action will come across as petty and / or lead to a lose–lose situation. However, not taking retributive action doesn't feel right either – if the reviewer is not willing to review unless paid, then it's hard to expect other people to review (or handle) his paper unless paid either.

If it matters, only the first part really happened: The reviewer used the "decline to review" button with a reason that went something like: “Sorry, I don't review unless I'm paid. Feel free to contact me again to discuss rates”. Still, this decline reason is logged in the EMS, so it can happen in the future.
First of all: Is there a rule that you need to be available as reviewer if you want to publish in that specific journal? People decline reviews for all sorts of reasons (often lack of time, which may or may not be the case), and I never heard that somebody got "punished" for that.

Your reviewer wanted to get paid. It is very unusual to pay reviewers, but on the other hand, it is not per se unreasonable or offensive to ask for compensation for work.

I would see it this way: Either you establish a general rule that authors must be available as reviewers or you accept that some people do not review papers (although they publish).