Can you do anything about eBay timewasters?

savergrant

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81924343#Comment_81924343

Are they a private seller or a business seller? When you say 'they sell an item for £50' is that what the buyer pays or their listing price? Buyers now pay a premium on top of the asking price instead of a seller fee. So when you list you can either enter the amount you want, or the amount the buyer will pay (if the buyer pays £20 you will receive approx £19). For nearly all items if there is postage ebay will purchase the label and email it to you and the cost will be deducted from your amount received. Unless you actively withdraw the amount it remains in your eBay balance until an automatic payout every three months, so certainly not 'dribs and drabs'. However business sellers may have other arrangements.

vacheron

eBay now accumulate all of your sales together in what they call your “eBay balance”. You can elect to have this automatically sent to your bank account at intervals you specify.

You can also request an ad hoc payment which will immediately dump any balance into your nominated bank account.

If you do not specify an automatic payout period, and do not claim the balance eBay will automatically send your accumulated balance to you after a certain period of time.
I believe this is every two months but I’m not 100%.

eBay can also default to using your balance to make purchases (in the same way that Amazon do with any accumulated gift card balance) so it’s possible that the reduced amounts are because your friend has spent some of their balance in the interim.