I know every area is different but the "grifters" in the area of Computational Linguistics (the ACL) are "any volunteer[1] whose paper has been accepted at least once", meaning anyone from PhD students to professors and industry researchers.
Not all academia is Elsevier.
[1] This policy has been altered recently, though, and now submitting a paper comes with reviewing duties.
I know every area is different but the "grifters" in the area of Computational Linguistics (the ACL) are "any volunteer[1] whose paper has been accepted at least once", meaning anyone from PhD students to professors and industry researchers.
Not all academia is Elsevier.
[1] This policy has been altered recently, though, and now submitting a paper comes with reviewing duties.