Software compliance email, is this legit ?

[Anonymous]

Hi,

We are a small office with a couple seats of LT2010, works great no need to upgrade, were happy !

Yesterday we got a couple of emails which to be honest read like fishing emails ! They don't refer to anyone by name just 'Dear Autodesk customer', nobody is named in the return email address just license-review@autodesk.com, the telephone number is an international Freephone number which because we are in the UK we're loathed to ring because you don't know were it leads to and finally by going to the Autodesk.com website I couldn't navigate to the link they specified which all in all makes me very suspicious !

I phone Autodesk UK at Farnborough, Hampshire and the receptionist said and I quote 'Oh we get loads of calls about these' ! then put me onto a number with a answering machine, I left my details got nothing as yet !.

Thing is none of it feels right, has anyone else had one of these ?, is this legit or is it a fishing email, scam or similar because it sure feels like one !

Copy of email below (I removed the registration email it contained). If it does turn out to be legit then is it poorly written and leads to confusion !

Cheers

Clive

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Autodesk Customer

As part of Autodesk’s on-going License Compliance Program, your company has been selected to undergo a software compliance audit to ensure that your organisation’s installation and use of Autodesk products and services is in compliance with applicable Autodesk licensing agreements. This request is made pursuant to those applicable Autodesk licensing agreements.

Autodesk also views these assessments as an opportunity to confirm licensing requirements and determine actual deployment of Autodesk products and services within your organisation. This enables Autodesk to understand current challenges faced by our customers in managing their Autodesk software deployments.

We ask that you participate in this Audit process by performing an inventory of your deployed Autodesk software within the next 10 days. Kindly provide all the required information on our Autodesk Software License Review Portal. The website is: license-review.autodesk.com . A User Guide, FAQs, and other resources are available on the portal before and after registration to guide your company through this process.

To register you will need to enter your company unique registration code: CODE REMOVED

In urgent cases or issues with your registration please dial 00800 237 87 355 and one of our License Compliance Consultants will help you.

Autodesk would like to thank you for your continued business. We value our partnership and believe that our joint attention to software compliance will strengthen this relationship going forward.

Yours Sincerely
The Autodesk License Compliance Team

Please do not reply to this unmonitored email. Please read the online guides for assistance. If you still need assistance please use the Messaging service within the tool (available after registration).
www.autodesk.com

[Otto]

Hello harsnow and welcome to the Autodesk community!

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[Anonymous]

Missed by a mile, so can somebody take a tin opener to the helpbot and let real people answer real questions !

Cheers

Clive

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Yes Autodesk does send these type of letter/emails out to customers.  Is it from Autodesk? Hard to say..  Anybody these days can create fake letters and etc.  But at the same time Autodesk may be checking to confirm you are complaint.   I will tag @Darin.Green and @TravisNave for their input..

[TravisNave]

The Software Asset Management team is very real. I have said for years
that Autodesk actively audits their customer license install base. It's
best to comply and get your house in order now before you are selected for
a full blown audit.

[dgorsman]

We've been audited in the past.  It's a relatively painless process and they're willing to help out to make things right if there are no egregious faults.

[dgorsman]

"Otto the Bot doesn't have the Matrix of Leadership so don't expect the wisdom of Optimus Prime."

[Anonymous]

Chaps, thank you for the replies it's much appreciated, after using Autocad for about 20 years this is the first time we'd ever heard of this and recieving an email out of the blue really makes you think 'errrr you what ?' Especially since it does read like one of those paypal/banking scams ! I had trouble trying to find out anything about this by searching on the net and the response from Autodesk UK was a little vague ! Our little office has no problem with verifying software, but I do have a better safe than sorry policy regarding this type of unsolicited email.

I'll have another look at it on Monday based upon the above replies !

Cheers  Clive

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Final comment on this. Following the comments above I took the plunge and completed the survey as requested. Quite easy and painless, with no problems which was good.

The only thing though which still bothers me is the initial contact, which if you substitute the name Autodesk with a bank name of your choice it really does read like a fishing email, so if I were Autodesk I'd have a look at that.

But...All's well that ends well so everything is sorted.

Thanks for your help on this .

Cheers

Clive

[deadmandennis]

I have a had a huge problem with this portal review.

The portal website as well as the customer service is poor.

The funny (not so) thing is I have more seats then how many I actually use.

It's taken my +/- 5 hours ...and now I am getting threatened by a timeline imposed on a software company that

I pay thousands of dollars every year.

Frustrated.

[juancamore01]

<BEGIN RANT>

Same here!!

Got the message went through the process. (Downloaded the program, generated report etc...)

Apparently Submitted the Xml file as per the instructions....

Then get a message the the process is incomplete, and that they have not received the file and that I have to comply ASAP and time is running out.

Check online and resubmit the audit on the website (as an attachment) in the messages and attachments tab.

Get no response.

Send another message, still no response Repeat several more times.... Still no response!!!!!!!!!

It's like my time is worth S@#%$

If autodesk wants people to comply with a requirement then they should at least help complete the process.

</END RANT>

[Anonymous]

I couldn't agree with you guys more. I just got off the phone with a rude woman that was annoyed that I haven't taken the time out of my 80+ hr weeks to run this report that I honestly thought was a scam. I pay thousands of dollars a year for this service and then I am treated like a criminal for it with their incredibly terrible service. Not to mention, the scammy looking emails and requests to scan your computer. Why would anyone not think this was a phishing scam? There are plenty of drafting softwares out there. Autodesk should reevaluate this process before losing clients to alternative options. 

[Anonymous]

I absolutely agree.   Why do we pay all the licenses to Autodesk only to be audited by AutodesK? It just leaves a perpetual bitter taste in the throat.

[AMestern]

I completely agree.

I am just a small part of my organization. CAD is not our business, I offer CAD support to our main business. Our CAD users are stand alone users not administered by the IT department. In fact my IT dept. won't run the audit program, they can't, we have POS, our banking contracts won't allow someone elses software to crawl through the network. 

Now my company is pushing me to drop AutoCAD and move to Vectorworks which is cheaper and tracks users all by itself.

[Anonymous]

Yes i agree, i'm almost every year autodesk check our license, for what?, and now i got the email with the 1Reminder?, we buy because we appreciate the license. but please do not bother us with this affair, because we focus on working with the software we have purchased this just wastes our time as your software user.

[Anonymous]

If your company forces you to switch, request that they switch you to Rhino. It operates much closer to CAD so there will be a much smaller learning curve than with Vectorworks. It's also is $2,000 or more cheaper than Vectorworks. It might be what I'm going to switch to.

[AMestern]

I had thought about Rhino, I understand it has a peel an orange feature for 3D objects, which would make my workflow so much easier.  I was unsure about crossing over, good to know the learning curve is tight. Unfortunately the rest of my industry is moving towards vectorworks, I am almost the last hold out in my company. This is pushing them over the edge.

[justin.garrett]

Just got one of these emails and yeah they do read like a phishing email.

Has anyone checked whether these audits are even mandatory?

We got a similar one a while back from Microsoft (re Office 365) and after digging around quite a bit I discovered that it was not even mandatory, we just had to officially decline to take part via email. However, the way they worded the email made it sound very mandatory... much like this Autodesk one.

My issue with this is that we only have one Maya license so it really isn't worth any of my time going through this process and I'm certainly not going to install anything so Autodesk can snoop on our network. I know 100% that our 3D artist has it installed on his work PC and his laptop for when he works remotely and I actually take offence at the wording of Autodesk's email i.e. "Autodesk also views these assessments as an opportunity to confirm licensing requirements and determine actual deployment of Autodesk products and services within your organisation. This enables Autodesk to understand current challenges faced by our customers in managing their Autodesk software deployments."

What a load of nonsense!

[Mark.Lancaster]

@justin.garrett  I will let @TravisNave respond to your reply and questions..

[TravisNave]

I would say it's probably in your best interest to at least appease the auditing gods on this even if you have only one seat.  If you are compliant, you really have nothing to worry about.  I suspect that doing a self-audit is the best way to keep big brother off your back.  We do so often with Microsoft.  I suspect it is leading more towards a sales call than an audit.