eBay

Oddest profile picture?

If you're a young teenager looking to score some cash to pay for your first car by hawking your great-great-grandfather's junk over the Internet, eBay is a good place to do it.

Unfortunately, two evil and dangerous killer alien monster robots can also use it to track you down and kill you. Transformers

In the real world, eBay is the largest online market for buying both new and used Transformers toys, whether in full or for parts (we're told other stuff gets sold there as well.) Its sheer size and market share mean that the selection and variety of toys is enormous; however, it has also given rise to scalpers. In addition, ~~stolen~~ ~~leaked~~ prototypes "acquired through unauthorized means" also often end up being offered on eBay, often going for even higher prices than toys sold by scalpers.

Notes

In the movie, Barricade states the eBay item number for Ladiesman217's glasses as "21153", a five digit number. In the real world, eBay item numbers had already reached the eight digit region by 1998; and in 2007, when the movie came out, they were already in the twelve digit region.
In issue 1 of the movie's comic book adaptation, the eBay logo on Sam's computer has been changed into "ePay", possibly to avoid accusations of product placement. Seems strange, since they had no qualms about that in the movie.
According to producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, eBay was not written into the movie as part of a sponsoring deal (although eBay was a partner for the production), but had already been explicitly referred to by name in the script even before the deal between eBay and Paramount was reached.^[1]
Starscream can't use eBay, as he can't get a credit card without a date of birth. Transformers Comic issue 10
eBay ran a video competition titled "Transform Your World" during the run-up to the first movie.