Auction Defender is a program that works with eBay to help you monitor a large number of eBay items from a single screen and win auctions at the best possible price.

The program works by placing your bids for you, seconds before the auction closes. This gives you the best chance of winning at the lowest possible price. The program has a number of unique features, helping you monitor auctions from a single efficient, easy to use interface.

There are many strategies for winning auctions at the best price. Maybe the most important one is to wait until the auction is about to close before placing your bid. The problem with manually doing this, is that you have to remember to be at your computer watching the end of the auction so you can submit your bid... You have to find the auction and keep refreshing the page...

Auction Defender can do all that for you, it can do it better, at the last seconds, and without the need to be at your computer. Sniping helps keep the price down until the last few seconds of an auction. By doing this, you leave no time for others to get notified, and reconsider their maximum bids. In addition to bid automation, Auction Defender provides a single interface to watching a large number of auctions at the same time, it is easy to learn, and has a number of advanced features to accommodate even the experienced eBay user.

Web-based snipe services are convenient because your computer doesn't need to be on. However, there are some issues with this approach:

1. Failed snipes - logging in from different locations (your computer and a web snipe service), many consecutive logins, and other such behavior deemed "unusual" can trigger eBay protections, such as CAPTCHA, or email/phone verification being required from eBay at the time of bid. Many users of web-based snipe services experience failed bids and messages from eBay similar to this:

It looks like you signed in from a different computer. Before you continue, we need to verify your identity and confirm it's really you.
Choose how you'd like to receive your confirmation code
We'll send a message to the option you select.
By Phone (voice or text)
By Email
[Continue] [Cancel]

In contrast, AD limits the number of logins to eBay and uses your computer's IP address for bidding, similarly to normal browsing (unless you use AD web sniping). AD is much less likely to trigger eBay login protections than web snipe services.

2. Privacy - you share your eBay credentials with a third party, and let them login/bid on your behalf. A local software, on the other hand, remains in your control.

3. Cost - Auction Defender is priced very competitively, we have one of the lowest annual costs of all auction snipers without any per-auction fees.

4. We offer both - AD provides both local and web-based sniping, so you still retain that option.

Notes:
Another common misconception is that your computer needs to remain turned on at all times with local snipe programs. AD allows your computer to go into sleep mode to conserve energy if there are no pending bids. It will wake it up to place bids.

If your account is plagued by asking for email verification or CAPTCHA at bid time, please read the information -here- as well.

By sniping, you avoid driving the price up early. You win items at a lower cost since others wont have time left to rethink their maximum bids and outbid you. If you bid early, others get emailed by eBay that they've been oudbid, reminding them to bid again, creating unnecessary traffic and additional bids. Sniping is the best proven way to constantly winning auctions at the lowest possible price. For more detailed information, see section 2.5.2 of the Auction Defender documentatioin.

Sniping also gives you the flexibility to change or remove your bid at all times, up till the last minute of an auction, since bids are only sent to eBay in the last few seconds of an auction.

No. Auction Defender will significantly improve your chances of winning auctions by bidding for you automatically. No longer will you lose auctions because you forgot to bid or were unable to get to a computer at an inconvenient time or place. Your maximum bid will also determine how successful your automated snipes will be for any given auction. Be sure to bid the maximum you are willing to pay and let the program do the rest!

Yes. The is freely available for download. However, after the initial two weeks with full functionality, the free version limits you to 2 snipes per week, and 100 auctions in the program. To unlock all features and lift all limitations, you can purchase a license.

You can add auctions to the program in a few different ways, for convenience:

1. You can click on the integrated Internet Explorer/Firefox button to import either a single auction, or a list of auctions into the program.

2. You can dragging the address (URL) from your browser into the program window

3. You can drag any eBay auction link from the internal/external browser to the program. For example, you can drag links from an eBay search results page, and drop them directly into the auction grid without the need to open each auction page.

4. You can copy/paste the eBay auction number (or URL) in the appropriate field within the program button bar.

Generally, broadband connections can use 5-7 seconds, and dialup should use 10+. Always keep in mind that it is more important to place your bid, than to do so in exactly the last second.

Contrary to popular belief, lower snipe time than 5 seconds is not better. It increases your chance of missing the bid, and 7-10 seconds is short enough to avoid any 'rebids' from manual bidders. Also, if you place a 10-second snipe and 'tie' with another 5-second snipe, the bid will go to you.

With all that said, it really depends on your internet connection, and the ability of your PC to keep exact time. The program provides a few pieces of information for you to determine a more precise snipe time. First, look at the statistics, under the "Tools > View statistics" menu. The dialog displays actual times it takes the program to execute a bid/refresh. Also, in the log, there are lines where the program synchronizes with ebay time labeled "synchronizing with ebay time ..." and will also contain any time difference with ebay time with each synchronization.

You should take the above into consideration, along with your internet connection type to fine tune exact snipe times.

When setting up a snipe bid, please enter the highest amount you are willing to pay for that auction. When the bid time is reached, Auction Defender will place an eBay proxy bid.

It will initially be the lowest possible winning bid, which may then automatically increase only as necessary to outbid others, until you either win the auction, or your maximum bid is reached.

No. Once you import auctions into the program, Auction Defender monitors them automatically, updates the grid periodically and alerts you on high bid changes.

There is a timer to the next refresh displayed in the status bar of the program (lower right). This refresh interval is user-configurable from the Options menu.

No.
You need to be connected to the internet for the program to be able to refresh auctions and bid, however there is no need to have a web browser open. AOL users may have to leave AOL running in order to remain connected to the internet.

Generally yes, your computer needs to be on, and online when the program is scheduled to execute bids. This is a requirement only for placing bids on eBay.

However, we've introduced a new optional "web snipe" feature with version 3.x, which allows you to synchronize your pending snipes with our web server, and turn your computer off. In that case, our server will place the bids for you, making the snipes independent of your computer and internet connectivity.

Yes! The program is multi-threaded and has the ability to bid on multiple auctions at exactly the same second. We've tested with up to 5 auctions ending at the same time. The functionality is only limited by the capacity of your internet connection.

Just hover with the mouse over icons in the program, the description of each one is in the first line of the tooltip.

For example, "fixed price" auction, or "open item, pending bid", etc.

No. Your eBay login information is only transmited from the program installed on your computer to the eBay website when necessary, for login/bidding purposes.

The only exception to the above rule is if you decide to place web-based snipe bids using our website. In such instances, your login information is encrypted and stored securely, and used only to place your actual bids.

Navigate to the "Tools > Options > Users" menu. Make sure you have a valid eBay user/password entered, and that at least one of the users is set to "default" (there is a "Default User" checkmark in the Add/Modify user dialog).

If a "Default" user is not selected, the program will not automatically select a user in the bid dialog as well.

This is most often caused by security/firewall software blocking access to the internet. Try reconfiguring, or turning off your firewall software to correct the issue.

It is also possible in some rare cases for the program to have a locked thread, preventing it from operating properly. Rebooting your computer should solve the issue.

Also, eBay occasionally changes their website, which disables parts of the program's functionality. It is always a good idea to update to the latest version.

Absolutely. You can enter different eBay accounts, notes, and customize the bidding process to your liking.

Usually this is caused by the computer not being connected to the Internet when the program is launched. Make sure you are connected to the internet, the program will not do this for you.

Occasionally, eBay makes changes to their website, ot signin process. It is posslible at such times for the program to stop functioning. Rest assured, we will work around the clock, and have an update within hours of such eBay changes. If you'd like you can contact us and let us know about any problems with the operation of the program here: contact support.

You can also check for program updates from the "Tools > Check for program updates" menu within the program.

Sometimes, when working in offline mode, or with a large number of open auctions, it is benefitial to stop/reduce refreshing of auction information to minimize bandwidth usage. To accomplish that:

1. Navigate to Tools > Options, set the "Auto-refresh auctions every... minutes" to zero (or a very large number).

2. Untick "Refresh auctions on program start" in the same General tab of the settings.

Note the program will still operate as intended, and it will refresh auctions more often in the last 10 minutes to give you time to react, should there be high bid changes that require your attention.

The program is able to import any advanced eBay search result. To do that, just search using eBay's familiar search interface in your browser, and apply all the filters you need to the results. Then, simply copy and paste the address (URL) of that search results page into the program (see the Import > From Search menu).

Note: You can use CTRL+C to copy highlighted text, CTRL+V to paste it. Alternatively you can right-click, and use the copy/paste menu commands

You can save such searches as "Favorites" in the program's import menu, so you don't have to repeat the process above every time. Each time the search is executed in the program, it will show new results, corresponding to current eBay auctions.

Importing from eBay search results can be scheduled to be repeated at regular intervals (see Import > Scheduled Import menu) once you have the web address (URL) of the search results page in the program's "Import > From Search" dialog.

Note: The Scheduled import properties allow for setting alerts on new items as well.

We feel that using eBay's own search allows for seamless integration of eBay's already familiar features and Auction Defender expands on its functionality without adding unnecessary complexity for the user.

Provided that your computer was on, and the program was running when the bid was supposed to take place, there are two possibilities:

1. Internet connection problems - At times, even "always on" broadband internet connections are interrupted for various reasons. The program will make reasonable attempts to bid again before the auction close, however it is dependent on the underlying internet connection.

2. Snipe time too short - if you set the bid to be placed a very short interval of time before auction close (a few seconds), you have to take into consideration the time it takes for your computer to connect to the eBay website and make the bid. If there is not enough time for the program to make a HTTP request, it might be too late to place a bid. A reasonable number for sniping on a broadband connection is 10+ seconds before auction close.

Bidding on eBay reserve price auctions often raises certain questions regarding the outcome of a bid. The reserve price is the lowest price at which a seller is willing to sell an item (unrelated to the opening bid price).

Remember that your preset snipe maximum price must exceed the seller's reserve in order for you to win the auction. If the reserve is not met, your actual bid on eBay may appear much lower than your maximum bid (even though the program places a proxy bid up to your maximum set bid).

Note: The seller's reserve price is sometimes listed in the item description, or, if not you can always email the seller and ask.

All the auction information in the program is in a single file with .adf extension, located in the prorgam directory. The default location/filename is:

C:\Program Files\Auction Defender\AuctionDefender.adf

You can email/copy this file onto another computer, and just put it in the installed program directory, or open it from the "File > Open" menu in the program.

Yes. The license allows for running the program simultaneously on up to 3 individual computers. However, installing it on more than 3 computers at the same time may cause your license to get revoked.

Yes. The program can be installed on more than one computer with the same eBay id. It will login and bid on either computer.

Yes. Auction Defender works with all eBay Motors listings.

Yes. Auction Defender versions 1.9.3.3 and later support the eBay "Mature Audiences" categories.

Note that the default user in the program needs to have the "Mature Audiences" category enabled for the program to be able to open the auctions.

Yes. Auction Defender works with most international eBay sites, although we haven't fully tested it with Chinese/Japanese/Korean character sets.

Currently supported sites:
eBay Australia
eBay Austria
eBay Belgium Dutch
eBay Belgium French
eBay Canada
eBay China
eBay France
eBay Germany
eBay Hong Kong
eBay India
eBay Ireland
eBay Itally
eBay Netherlands
eBay Singapore
eBay Spain
eBay Switzerland
eBay UK
eBay US

In addition, Auction Defender allows for customized date/time format, and has support for 17 different currencies, and the corresponding different eBay minimum bid increments.

Auction Defender currently supports the following currencies:

United States Dollars (USD, US $)
United Kingdom Pounds (GBP)
Australia Dollars (AUD, AU $)
Canada Dollars (CAD, C $)
China Yuan Renminbi (RMB)
Euro (EUR)
Japan Yen (JPY)
India Rupees (INR)
Hong Kong Dollars (HKD, HK$)
Malaysia Ringgits (MYR)
Norway Kroner (NOK) *
Poland Zlotych (PLN)
Philippine Pesso (PHP) *
Singapore(SGD)
Sweden Kronor (SEK) *
Switzerland Francs (CHF)
Taiwan New Dollars (TWD, NT$)

* no separate eBay bid increment table available, using defaults

There are two places in the program settings to specify the preferred eBay site for opening auctions, as well as shipping preferences.

The first setting is per eBay user, and it overrides any general options:
In the AD menus, navigate to: Tools -> Options -> Users -> ..eBay username.. -> Modify.
Set a "Preferred eBay site" and shipping to options.

The second settings is general, for all eBay users set in the program, and is only in effect if no custom user setting as per the above step is set.
Navigate to: Tools -> Options -> General -> set "Preferred eBay Site" and, optionally "Shipping to:".

Note: per user settings override general settings.

Auction Defender only updates the auction information in the program grid every 15 minutes by default. This interval can be decreased, or increased at your preference from the Options menu.

Note that in the last few minutes before bidding, Auction Defender refreshes auctions every minute to inform you about bid changes in a more timely manner.

No. Programs like Auction Defender are perfectly legal and within the expected usage of eBay. The program does not include any "crawling" technology that woud increase traffic to eBay.

Auction Defender simply interacts with eBay the same exact way you would if you manually placed the bids.

Auction Defender will give an "outbid" alert in case your bid is below the current ebay asking price. The current asking price is calculated by adding the 'ebay bid increment' to the current high bid. Note that depending on the auction current price, minimum bid increments can be anywhere from $0.05 to $100.00. If the current minimum bid is above your snipe bid, the program will alert you (since it can't place a bid below the current eBay asking price).

For example, if the current auction price is between $100 and $250, the bid increment is $2.50. Let's assume you''ve placed a $150 snipe bid on an auction with current price $100. The moment its current price reaches $147.51, you will be notified that you've been "outbibd", since the next legal bid is 147.51 + 2.50 = 150.01 (which is above your specified snipe amount).

For further information, please see:

eBay US bid increments
eBay UK bid increments
eBay DE bid increments
eBay AU bid increments
eBay CA bid increments
eBay Austria bid increments
eBay China bid increments
eBay Honk Kong bid increments
eBay India bid increments
eBay France bid increments
eBay Italy bid increments
eBay Netherlands bid increments
eBay Philippines bid increments
eBay Poland bid increments
eBay Singapore bid increments
eBay Spain bid increments
eBay Switzerland bid increments

Sometimes, you want to win one, or a few item(s) out of a larger "bid group". For example, let's say you want to buy a watch. You find 5 auctions you are interested in, however you only need, and are willing to pay for one watch. Also, the 5 auctions you're interested in may end minutes or days apart, may have different brands watches, and you may be willing to pay different prices, depending on the exact watch you win.

Auction Defender allows for easily configuring a bid group, and adding all related auctions to it. You can specify to win a single item, or a number of items in the group, the price you're willing to pay for each item is configurable as well. Once the group is set, you are done. The program will bid until it wins the specified number of auctions in the group, then it will cancel the remaining pending bids automatically.

Note this process has the potential to double your savings compared to using only regular sniping, you can bid lower, since you have more than one chance of winning, you compete for winning only one item from multipe auctions.

Conditional bidding is an advanced feature allowing for even more flexibility than bid groups. It allows for setting certain logical conditions to be met before a bid is placed. For example, you may want to bid on a "Harley Davidson Leather Jacket", but only if you win that "VRSC V-Rod Harley" bike auction first ;). Point being, with conditional bids you can easily specify a condition to bid on the matching "leather jacket" auction only if you have already won the "motorcycle" auction first.

When placing multiple bids in a bid group, it is possible for logical conflicts to arise, for example:

You want to win one of three auctions, and bid $10 on each. They close one minute apart.

1. The program bids $10 on auction_1, you are the high bidder.
2. When the time comes to place the bid on auction_2, if you're still the high bidder on auction_1 (and auction_1 is still open), the auction_2 bid is cancelled, to prevent you from winning both.
3. There is still a chance for auction_1 to be lost, since it is still open (even though you are the high bidder at the time).

In this particular case, auction_2 can end at a lower price, just because at the time of placing the auction_2 bid, the program could not determine you are losing auction_1.

In other words, if the program determines there is a possibility for another auction in the group to be won, it wont place new bids in the group (exceeding the predetermined maximum bids).

This is necessary, in order to prevent the program from winning more items than specified in the bid group setup.

Auction Defender works with most browsers, including Firefox. If you disable the internal browser (Tools > Options > Internet menu), the program will open auction pages in your default browser. We also have an extra feature for both Internet Explorer and Firefox where people can use a menu button to import auctions from the browser with a single click. When installing Auction Defender, the program also installs the IE and Firefox extensions for importing auctions with a single click.

We currently support Firefox and IE for single-click importing. All functionality is also available to all other browsers from within the program, including mass-importing, adding auctions, etc.

If you have the program already installed, you can just add the Firefox extension by updating the program to the latest version. Note that Firefox needs to be closed for the extension to be installed. Here is a direct link to the AD update: - AD update -

Notes: You may have to drag the AD icon to the toolbar in Firefox from the "View > Toolbars > Customize..." menu to make it visible.
The Firefox extension supports version 3+ of the browser. An older, unsupported extension for Firefox 2 is available for download -here-

Yes. The one-click button works in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. For other browsers, you'd have to paste the auction URL (or number) into the program.

You can just drag the URL from any browser and drop it over the program. If the Auction Defender program is not visible, you can hover over it on the Windows taskbar, and it will bring it up automatically.

For mass-importing, you can use the Auction Defender "Import" menu (or the import button in IE or Firefox).

If the Internet Explorer Standard buttons toolbar has been modified from its default, it is possible that the Auction Defender import button is not visible when the program is installed.

If you do not see the Auction Defender button in Internet Explorer, follow these steps to enable it:

1. In Internet Explorer, navigate to "View > Toolbars > Customize"
2. In the left pane, look for the Auction Defender button and highlight it
3. Click "Add" in the middle of the dialog to add the button to the right pane.
4. Click "Close". The button should be visible in the toolbar.

The main grid opens auction pages in the "internal" browser by default. To use your external default browser instead, please follow these steps:

Navigate to: Tools > Options > "Internet" tab > uncheck the box labeled "Use Internal Browser".

You can also turn off the internal browser completely by selecting "View" and unchecking "View Ingegrated Browser".

Double-clicking Item numbers, or right-clicking on an auction in the grid and selecting "Open auction page(s)" should now open pages in your default external browser.

We at AuctionDefender.com both respect and protect your privacy. We will never sell, or share your email address or personal information with third parties.

eBay IDs/passwords are never shared with our website, only with eBay as necessary to place bids. Your email address is only used for registering the program, and to contact you regarding licensing/registration of the product.

The Auction Defender program may contact the www.auctiondefender.com website periodically as needed to update the program, at user-defined intervals. Registered users can turn off automatic updates from the Tools>Optioins menu, although we recommend you leave them on (changes to the eBay website require updates to the program).

AD is completely virus/malware-free. It has been independently scanned and audited, it is available from hundreds of shareware websites on the net that scan submissions as well.

Some anti-virus software may consider any online communication (or installing browser addons) as suspicious, and may flag AD as a potential threat. You would need to manually confirm that AD is safe and allow it to communicate online for it to be functional. The browser addons only involve a button for easier importing of auctions, and are optional.

Auction Defender installs one button to the Internet Explorer "Buttons toolbar". It is used for one-click adding of auctions from Internet Explorer into the program.

If your anti-spyware stops the the installation of this Internet Explorer component, please allow it manually.

On the other hand, if you do not plan on adding auctions using the Internet Explorer browser, this is completely optional. The Internet Explorer button is only used for importing auctions.

Auction Defender uses your internet connection.

It communicates with the eBay website to update auctions, synchronize time, and place bids for you automatically. When starting the program, and at user-configurable intervals, it also checks the auctiondefender.com website for program updates.

Your firewall software may alert you that the software is trying to access the Internet. It only uses the Internet connection for the above stated purposes, only as necessary, and it informs the user while it is doing so.

We both respect and protect your privacy. The Auction Defender program contains no spyware, adware, or any other type of malware. Your eBay ID/password is not shared with our website, only with eBay as necessary to sign you in to place your bids, or import auctions from "My eBay".

There are a number of reasons and unique features that set Auction Defender apart from the competition.

The program includes bid groups, support for multiple eBay IDs, single-click adding of auctions, fully customizeable interface, color coding, timely alerts, independent bidding and auction refreshing threads, and much more. It is programmed in C++, fast, with low memory footprint, and it works every time. We've spent a lot of time in designing the interface to be intuitive - for example the "Place bid" dialog closely resembles eBay pages, the information is presented in the same order, and includes an image of the item, if available. The grid is designed to use screen space as efficiently as possible, and the information displayed on it can be customized as well.

Auction Defender is efficient, fast and precise. It is coded in C++, it does not require any additional Visual Basic libraries, or Java environment. It uses separate threads for bidding and refreshing, allowing for more precise execution of snipes.

Auction Defender includes a number of smart background algorithms, for example:
- if the program fails to login due to communication error, it will attempt again.
- if your pending bid is below the current minimum increment (even if it is above the high bid price) it will alert you
- auctions are refreshed more often in the last 5 minutes before placing a bid to allow you faster response as needed.

The program allows for a single-click import of auctions from your browser, you can even mass-import from any eBay search result page.

Auction Defender includes all the necessary information about auctions in the program, including the image (if available), shipping, the seller's feedback rating, whether they accept PayPal, etc. All this saves you time in eliminating the need to open a browser in order to get all the information about auctions.

We also respect and protect your privacy. Unlike all bidding services, you do not have to share your eBay ID/password with our website - it is only shared between your computer and eBay.

Auction Defender is one of the lowest-cost solutions to monitoring/sniping eBay auctions, with ALL key features to facilitate even advanced eBay users.

In addition to the number of unique features, we are committed to customer service and fast program updates as needed. We care about, and listen to all our users.

Our system registers you with the email provided to us by PayPal. When registering the product, please use your default Paypal email address.

Unfortunately, email can sometimes be unreliable. Please check your anti-spam filters and make sure they can receive email from our domain. Even if you did not receive the registration email after payment, here are the simple instructions to obtain your license:

1. Install and start the program, enter the "Registration" dialog when prompted.
2. Type your registered email address (usually your primary PayPal address) and hit the "Request license key" button. It will open a web page where you can automatically obtain your license key. You may have to temporarily disable your firewall, or allow the Auction Defender software to communicate with the internet and open your browser.

Feel free to email us if you have problems or questions about the registration process.

Simply email us with all your registration information, and we'd be happy to update your account to anohter email address.

After we've updated your account on our website, you will need to update the registered email in the installed program itself:

1. Make sure you are running the latest version of the program (Help > About menu). If not, download it and install the newest version from our website.

2. Choose the "Help > Change registration email" option from the program menus, it will unregister the program, and allow you to enter your new email address.

3. Once you enter your email address in the registration dialog, you will have to click the "Request License key" button to get your new license key.

1. Make sure you're using the correct registered email address.

2. Note license keys are computer-specific, you'd need to obtain a new one for each machine.

3. Make sure to login as administrator

4. Make sure you've downloaded/installed the latest version of Auction Defender.

5. If you're still having problems, run this registry patch to remove any old license information: unregister.reg, then try registering again.

To register the program after reinstalling it, you can always follow these simple instructions to get your license key automatically:

1. Install the newest version of AD from our website.
2. Enter your registered email address in the registration dialog.
3. Click [Get License key] in the registration dialog - it will take you to the license page on our site where you can obtain your new license key automatically.
4. Paste the license key in the program's registration dialog and click [Register].

Note: You can always check the status of your license in the "Help > About" program menu.

Yes, you can use your existing Auction Defender version 2.x license with Auction Defender 3.x

We've moved away from using "license keys" with AD3, so you'd have to create an account on our website -here-. Please note you have to use your AD2 registered email for your license information to be linked correctly to your new username.

Once you've registered on our website, you can use your username/password to unlock all AD3 program features. You will also be able to see your license details in the program's "Help > About" menu, as well as when you login to your account online.

The program is set to check for updates automatically by default.

If, for some reason you need to install a different version, you can always download the new setup file from: www.auctiondefender.com/download.php , and run setup without deleting your old version. As an extra safety measure, you can first backup C:\Program Files\Auction Defender\AuctionDefender.adf to another location (it contains all auctions in the program), but running setup shouldn't change your settings/auctions.

Installing an older version is generally not a good idea, since we release bug fixes, and reflect any eBay site changes in the newer releases.

The program itself only uses about 4 Megabytes per thread... Running 3 concurrent threads by default it uses less than 16 Megabytes of memory. The rest of the RAM is used by the integrated browser. If you are concerned about the amount of RAM used by the program, you can easily disable the internal browser from the "Tools > Options > Internet > Use internal browser" menu, and RAM usage will be reduced greatly.

It is simply not possible to integrate a full-featured browser without consuming memory.

We sometimes make changes to the help files. The most recent version is the online help.

Also, please note that the program's internal help file is only updated when you run the program setup. Periodic software updates will not update the help file. You can always install a newer version over your existing one, it will retain your current settings/auctions.

A "Communicatioin error" means your computer can't reach the eBay page it's trying to read - it is usually caused by a temporary interruption in your Internet connection.

A "Parser error" means the program has a problem understanding the eBay page it is currently reading. It could be caused by ebay error messages, or new types of pages not yet recognized by the program. Please use the "Help > Email bug report" menu to email us error logs so we can investigate it further.

Sometimes, while the software is updating, it is possible to get an error because of internet connection issues.

For your reference, below are the most common error codes, and their meaning:
221 - incomplete file download
7027 - internet issue - out of cache memory
7028 - internet connection problem

In such cases, please just try the update again later. Restarting the program may help in some cases.

If the problem persists, you can always try downloading and running the full program setup from our website. It will retain the program settings and imported auctions.

eBay sometimes invokes a "CAPTCHA" security measure for user login. In the rare occasions this is required for login, you will encounter errors refreshing some of the auction information in AD and bidding. The selective use of CAPTCHA for login is most commonly triggered by the following:

- when eBay needs some verification on your account, like address or credit card details.
- logging in from a different IP address/computer than usual
- too many login requests in a short period of time
- too many failed login attempts
- when the eBay user is new
- when the eBay user password is too weak
- when you recently changed your eBay password
- using proxies
- logging in near-simultaneously from two different IPs (sniper at home and manual login at work, or snipe web service, for example. This may include browsing from two IPs while logged in)
- when you're bidding on too many items ending at the same time from the same seller
- using another web-based snipe service - this causes your account to login from different IPs, try to limit your logins from different places.

We've taken measures to reduce the number of logins with AD to avoid such CAPCHAs, however, you may still experience this on some rare occasions. We recommend that you stop AD temporarily (5+ minutes) and use your external web browser, then do this:

1. In your web browser, logout of eBay (make sure there are no multiple tabs open).
2. Clear any eBay cookies, and restart your web browser.
3. Try to login to eBay, you should be prompted with some verification questions (to verify your phone, address, etc.) or/and a CAPTCHA image. Answer as necessary.

You may logout and try again (after clearing cookies/restarting). When your web browser logins no longer requires verifications/CAPTCHA, the program will start working again.

Notes:
- You will have to clear your web browser's cookies in order to see the CAPTCHA or questions at login.
- You may want to try this browser login with cleared cookies a couple of times until eBay stops requesting the CAPTCHA verification at login.
- Avoid using web snipe services, as logging in from their IP addresses may trigger CAPTCHA at bid time as well.

More info: eBay verification code questions

Under Windows Vista/7, files are under:
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Auction Defender\

Under Windows XP, files are under:
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Auction Defender

Auction Defender saves all auctions information in a file, by default called AuctionDefender.ad3.

That error message indicates that the program can't save the auctions to its' database file. A side effect of this is that if you restart AD, it will likely cause all auctions to disappear from the program. Please follow one of the solutions below to correct the issue.

To fix, you have two options:

1. In the AD program, click on the "File" menu > "Save As", and choose a different filename to save the auctions to.

2. You can download a fresh copy of the program from our website, and reinstall it completely.


Note: The issue may be caused by old/obsolete versions of AD, by changed/corrupt user profiles, by moving the file between computers, or by some security software preventing AD from writing to that file. If the above steps don't correct the issue, please make sure there is no third-party security software preventing AD from writing to that file.

There are few possibilities if AD is unable to update:

1. Incomplete download - simply try again, or download from our website and it should correct the issue.

2. Anti-virus/security software blocking AD - sometimes real-time anti-malware protection may block the update with an error. For example, McAffe, or Malwarebytes may display: "MoveFile failed; code 183." Another common error is "CreateProcess failed; code 2." Stopping the security software temporarily, or simply allowing AD through should take care of the issue. Alternatively, you can try downloading the latest version from the website as well.

"Web snipe" is a new AD feature that allows you to place snipes via our web server instead of your computer (so your computer can remain offline, and snipes are independent of your internet connection).

It is a two-step process, first you place your regular snipe bid in the program with a "web snipe" check mark in the bid dialog, and secondly you "synchronize" all placed web snipes with our server via a button in the top-right portion of the button bar in the program.

You can view/edit current web snipes if you login to our website as well.

The use of this feature is completely optional for the benefit of users who may decide to use it. You can still choose to ignore it and continue placing local snipes using your computer.

If you're not completely satisfied with the software, you can easily and completely uninstall Auction Defender in one of the following two ways:

1. Navigate to the Windows/Start menu -> expand "All Programs" -> expand "Auction Defender", and click the "Uninstall Auction Defender" link.

2. Alternatively, you can navigate to: Control Panel -> "Programs" -> "Progams and Features" -> "Uninstall a program" - "Auction Defender"

Note: AD does not install any third-party software.

Provided you've already read the online help, this FAQ, and you still have a question or problem with the operation of the program, contact us, and we'll try to help. We might even add the answer to this list.