How to tell whether email seeking paid peer-reviewers for grant scheme is legitimate? How to respond? I am not sure if this question should be asked in the academia.SE. But, I don't have a clue either for other forums.

Today, I received an e-mail(in my academic id) from Kazakhstan saying that they would pay me USD250 per review of the research projects submitted to National Center of Science and Technology Evaluation (NCSTE) in Kazakhstan.

The e-mail reads as below:


  Dear Sir/Madam,
  
  The National Center of Science and Technology Evaluation (NCSTE) in Kazakhstan regularly organizes peer-review of research proposals from Kazakhstan’s scientific community. The center was founded in 2011 according to Decree of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
  
  NCSTE invites you to participate in peer-reviewing process of technical and scientific projects. The payment for assessing a research proposal is $250 (USD). One expert may assess up to 10 research proposals per call. The calls are expected to be announced throughout the year.
  
  If you are interested in cooperation and would like to be a member of our peer-review expertise, please let us know by filling in the “Form for international experts” (see in the attachment).Please, send to corporate@ncste.kz
  
  Please note, that NCSTE expects your H-index to be 5 or above according to Scopus or Web of Science databases for a particular period 2012-2017. Links are provided below:
  
  https://www.scopus.com/
  
  https://webofknowledge.com/
  
  In case your H-index is lower than 5, we still include you into our database, however won’t be able to use your service until it reaches 5.
  
  All expenses (postage and bank transfers) will be covered by NCSTE.
  
  Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. 
  
  P.S.: For more information, please visit our official web site at http://www.ncste.kz/en


I am hesistant to click any link provided or to visit any link provided here because of the latest Ransomware attack (WannaCry).

For answer to my worries, I went through a forum like discussion in Cronicle page where few persons claim that it is legit.

I have the following questions:


Should it be legit?
Why will some agency pay this much money for a review of 10-15 page report?
For the first time I am experiencing this, how should I respond? Should I respond at all?
Can it be a spam or a scam? (There is a doc attachment, which I have not clicked till now.)


Disclaimer: Please avoid yourself from clicking any link here if you think it could be a s[c/p]am even from my side.
This is most likely genuine, in particular if the proposal to be reviewed fall broadly into your area.

Just check the actual web address of the links given (rather than what they say they are) and/or search the respective institutions online. I did once a similar job for the Polish science foundation.

Actually, if you click the link http://www.ncste.kz/en provided, you will learn that they are attempting to boost their science standing and one way to do that is to get international reviewers.

Don't be too paranoid about viruses, just don't do stupid things (like typing your password into some unknown/new website), or opening mail attachments of unknown origin, etc..