The Archives of Biological Sciences is the official journal of the Serbian Biological Society. Here I describe one case in which the journal accepted a submitted paper within 24 hours and without any peer review.

I have verified that the Archives of Biological Sciences currently has an impact factor of 0.791.

Also, according to the Directory of Open Access Journals, the journal does not impose any article processing charges.

Within 24 hours after submitting the paper to the journal, the corresponding author received an acceptance letter and invoice. [Both have been redacted to remove identifying information.]

The invoice demanded € 1785. The email containing the invoice was sent by the journal’s editor-in-chief, Prof. Dr. Božidar Ćurčić, who stated, “PLS. OPEN THE ATTACHMENT / PAYMENT IMMEDIATELY!!! University of Belgrade – Faculty of Biology.”

According to a document shared with the corresponding author, the journal began to impose article processing charges in March 2014.

With a verifiable impact factor and 24-hour, peer-review-free acceptance, I imagine the Society is making a lot of money at this time. The corresponding author reports that the submission was 10 A4 pages. Here is a selection from the new APC document:

Urgent publishing? Just pay double … or triple.

As you can see, authors can pay extra and get an almost immediate publication.

I’ve added this journal to my list. I strongly recommend against submitting papers to the Archives of Biological Sciences.

Updated 2014-06-12 to add a link to the invoice.