“Public Service Review”?

A few months ago, I received a call from someone at the “Public Service Review”, supposedly a glossy magazine distributed to UK policymakers and influencers of various stripes. The gentleman on the line said that he was looking for someone to write an article for his magazine giving an example of what sort of space-related research was going on at a prominent UK institution, to appear opposite an opinion piece written by Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society.

This seemed harmless enough, although it wasn’t completely clear what I (or the Physics Department, or Imperial College) would get out of it. But I figured I could probably knock something out fairly quickly. However, he told me there was a catch: it would cost me £6000 to publish the article. And he had just ducked out of his editorial meeting in order to find someone to agree to writing the article that very afternoon. Needless to say, in this economic climate, I didn’t have an account with an unused £6000 in it, especially for something of dubious benefit. (On the other hand, astrophysicists regularly publish in journals with substantial page charges.) It occurred to me that this could be a scam, although the website itself seems legitimate (although no one I spoke to knew anything about it).

I had completely forgotten about this until this week, when another colleague in our group at Imperial told me had received the same phone call, from the same organization, with the same details: article to appear opposite Lord Rees’; short deadline; large fee.

So, this is beginning to sound fishy. Has anyone else had any similar dealings with this organization?

Update: It has come to my attention that one of the comments below was made under a false name, in particular the name of someone who actually works for the publication in question, so I have removed the name, and will possibly likely the comment unless the original write comes forward with more and truthful information (which I will not publish without permission). I have also been informed of the possibility that some other of the comments below may come from direct competitors of the publication. These, too, may be removed in the absence of further confirming information.

Update II: In the further interest of hearing both sides of the discussion, I would like to point out the two comments from staff at the organization giving further information as well as explicit testimonials in their favor.