We originally submitted our manuscript to the journal Advanced Science (Manuscript ID: advs.201900965) on April 25 2019 and it was rejected on May 14 2019 (almost 3 weeks later) without being submitted for review. In the rejection, the editor of the journal offered transfer to Advanced Biosystems. After discussing the issue with the Editor, he said that "within our portfolio, your paper would suits best for Advanced Biosystems so I cannot guarantee peer-review in any other journal" Thus, we transferred our manuscript to Advanced Biosystems. For my enormous and unpleasant surprise, on May 24 (9 days after!!!), I received an email from the handling assistant editor justifying the rejection of our manuscript (indeed without submission to reviewers) with the following words:
"Unfortunately, we are not able to consider it further for publication. We're sorry for this unsuccessful transfer. As we receive many more manuscripts than we can possibly publish, or even send out for review, we are forced to adopt a stringent selection process. We therefore can only select those manuscripts we believe will interest the broadest possible section of our readership and represent a significant breakthrough of general interest.
We therefore did not want to delay this decision and wish you success in submission of the manuscript to another journal."
Overall, this cannot defined as handling but as mishandling of our manuscript. I am doubtful that the assistant editor in Advanced Biosystems read or understood the manuscript.
