Eh, you always beat me to some of the good stuff.
I was interested in their conference associated journals and why these particular venues were chosen. All of the journals, except for the Middle Eastern Journal of Scientific Research, belong to MedWelljournals.com. The director of medwelljournal publications is Muhammad Sohail. I would guess that the publisher is based in Pakistan, specifically Faisalabad. The site is registered to someone by the name of Muhammad Sarwar. He notes his affiliation as being with ‘ANSI’, but I’m currently uncertain what this could refer to.
As for the Middle Eastern Journal of Scientific Research, this journal belongs to the International Digital Organization for Scientific Information (IDOSI). Their site is registered to a Muhammad Zeeshan of Faisalabad, Pakistan. He is also listed as a managing editor at the publication. This publisher was one of many caught in a sting by Science Magazine a while back, so there’s an invoice available for view from one of their publications. According to the invoice, the publication fee was to be directed to a Ayesha Majeed in Faisalabad, Pakistan:
http://scicomm.scimagdev.org/data/journals/272/11/Invoice%207444-GJP.pdf
While searching around, I came across an old Facebook comment written by Academic Fora that listed a couple of other journals not included on their website:
https://m.facebook.com/academicfora/posts/1040670592619101
One of these journals was the Asian Economic and Financial Review. This journal can be viewed on the Asian Economic and Social Society website:
http://www.aessweb.com/journals/5002/info/eb
The bottom of the aim and scope section lists several contact emails for the journal, one of which is editor@pakinsight.com. Pakinsight.com is another journal site where the Asian and Financial Review can be found (same editors and whatnot.)
http://www.pakinsight.com/journal/3/editorial-board.html
Aessweb.com is registered to a Kashif Imran of Pakistan.
Aessweb.com and Pakinsight.com also claim that they have a conference hosting partner called Scientific Group (schist.org). Scientific Group only runs a handful of conferences, but, as mentioned they do have a somewhat familiar list of conference associated journals:
http://www.scihost.org/?ic=contents&id=12
The first half of the list (the part w/o hyperlinks) primarily belong to Medwelljournals. The 2nd half of the list primarily belongs to Pakinsight journals.
Pakinsight has their own separate conference hosting site as well. It has been deemed the Pak Research and Development Wing (pakrdw.com).
Another something I found interesting was the similarity of payment instructions between the sites. For instance:
—Academic Fora—
“You may pay the conference registration fee by credit card, 2checkout, bank transfer, and Western Union. If you have any questions regarding payment, please do not hesitate to contact us at”
“You may pay the conference registration fee by credit card, 2checkout, bank transfer, and Western Union. If you have any questions regarding payment, please do not hesitate to contact us at: contact@academicfora.com or e-mail address of concerned conference.
Please contact our conference secretariat for payment by bank transfer, and Western Union.”
“Credit Card and 2 checkout
If you have a credit card or 2checkout account, we strongly encourage you to pay the fee through 2checkout. 2checkout enables users, whether or not they are 2checkout members, to use all major credit cards, including Visa,Master card, American Express, and Discover. 2checkout is fast, and secure.”
“Privacy Policy
The Academic Fora will protect your personal information. Your personal information received will only be used to fill your order. We will not sell or redistribute your information to anyone.”
http://academicfora.com/payment/
—Aessweb—
“You may pay the publication fee by credit card, 2checkout, bank transfer, and Western Union. If you have any questions regarding payment, please do not hesitate to contact us. editor@aessweb.com.
Please contact to editorial office by bank transfer, and Western Union.”
“Credit Card and 2checkout
If you have a credit card or 2checkout account, we strongly encourage you to pay the fee through 2checkout. 2checkout enables users, whether or not they are 2checkout members, to use all major credit cards, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. 2checkout is fast, and secure.”
http://www.aessweb.com/Pay/
—Pak Publishing—
“You may pay the publication fee by credit card, 2checkout, bank transfer, and Western Union. If you have any questions regarding payment, please do not hesitate to contact us. editor@aessweb.com; editor@pakinsight.com
Please contact to editorial office by bank transfer, and Western Union.”
“Credit Card and 2checkout
If you have a credit card or 2checkout account, we strongly encourage you to pay the fee through 2checkout. 2checkout enables users, whether or not they are 2checkout members, to use all major credit cards, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. 2checkout is fast, and secure.”
“Privacy Policy
The PPG will protect your personal information. Your personal information received will only be used to fill your order. We will not sell or redistribute your information to anyone.”
http://www.pakinsight.com/pay-publication-fees.html
Finally, if I had to take a guess, I’d wager that ‘fora’ is mistranslation of ‘forum’.