Suspected phishing/scam
We have been seeing this during the second quarter of every year, which I suspect is either driven by vendors or by the employee's pressure to meet the sales targets. It generally starts with compliance-related mail and soon turns into negotiating and forcing license purchases. Our attempt has always been to resolve compliance issues, and we always request additional data based on which action can be taken. The pattern has always been the same: when you ask for additional information, they will threaten, saying that the same is confidential and will be produced in court if that's the route we wish to take. It's a classic arm-twisting strategy: we either procure licenses accepting without asking any questions, or they threaten with legal actions. They add a legal firm to the mail chain, who then starts sending mail on the client's behalf, threatening with legal action and passing remarks as though we have no chance at defending ourselves and that the whole process will be very expensive for us, which I feel is in a way threatening and harassment. As a firm that believes in compliance, we do not mind adding additional licenses as needed. However, procuring licenses based on these threats and accusations would only prove that we are non-compliant and tarnish our reputation, which hurts. I believe that if any concerns are genuine and need to be corrected, they can be done in an amicable manner. I believe that despite all the measures, lapses may happen. But it's important to address the lapses by either making the software and licensing foolproof or educating the firms by working with them to avoid the same. I am sure the brand has good ethical practices to ensure their paid customers are not harassed. But, I suspect that some employees have their vested interests and use this as a tool to benefit themselves. I sincerely hope that an internal enquiry can be initiated to investigate this and implement systems that do not harass but work with customers to help them stay compliant. Several other firms have faced similar harassment, which I suspect is more prevalent in India.
In the current case, an employee from the software vendor raised an issue concerning the overuse of the license. They contend that they have counted the licenses used by 11 Windows users and that we have only 3 licenses.
We have a total of 12 Licenses in the period, which we assume is when the issue was highlighted. We requested that they share the period during which the issue was noted so that we could verify, but they denied it, saying that the data is confidential and can be produced only in court. The team did not even check whether the number of licenses we mentioned was correct. In addition, the license terms says that:
"Your Authorized User may concurrently use only one (1) Desktop Device and one (1) Mobile Device at a time to access the Software. For any Collection, Your Authorized User may concurrently use any Software titles in the Collection, but they may use only one (1) Desktop Device and one (1) Mobile Device at a time to do so."
It does not mention anything about Windows Users, the need for a unique device, or the fact that a license cannot be used on another device.
PS: License terms as provided on the website (https://www.autodesk.com/company/terms-of-use/en/offering-types-and-benefits)"
