"Please excuse me if I have posted this in the incorrect area but I have never posted before." - This is as good as any area, and probably better than most, if not all.
"I am still having trouble even getting connected to AS ... Am I alone (Aus) on this or is it the same for all areas of the globe." - I just added and deleted a snipe, so everything seems OK, at least for me and me being in the States.
"so I don't dare try to make any changes to my existing snipes." - I think that if you can change them, you should.
In case you didn't see this, Sara from AS support posted this last night:
Bid group items were a subset of bids not placed today. The first would be placed, but not ones after that because the database could not tell if the ones before it won or not. The issue this morning was that the database wasnt able to update the status on items. So after the first bid group item was sniped we couldnt enter into the database the fact that it won or lost. It was then unsafe to fire off subsequent bid group snipes because you might have already won the first one.
You can claim your free snipes here:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/freeSnipes.aspx
Sorry about that.
If you're still having problems, click here to file a support case: http://support.auctionsniper.com/
I hope this is of some help.
Rick