It was thought he was the author of the Periodos to Nicomedes, a work on geography written in Classical Greek.
It is an account of the world (περιήγησις, periegesis) in 'comic' iambic trimeters which is dedicated to a King Nicomedes of Bithynia.
Because this was clearly a mistake Lucas Holstenius and Isaac Vossius were the first to attribute it to Scymnus of Chios because he was cited more than once by late grammarians as the author of a Periegesis.
It continued to pass under his name until 1846 when Augustus Meineke, in republishing the extant fragments, showed clearly that there were no grounds for ascribing them to that Scymnus.
The real work of Scymnus of Chios appears to have been in prose and the few statements cited from him have no resemblance to the Periodos to Nicomedes.