Better Ask Barry: Online car scams

SALINAS, Calif (KION) “Here, it's 85 thousand miles."

The jeep looked like a steal to Bonnie Evans after she found it on Facebook Marketplace.

“I mean the Jeep is flawless,” Evans said.

But you know that old saying…  

“If it seems like it’s too good to be true, it’s probably too good to be true.”

Evans figured out she was being scammed after the supposed seller told her to email his aunt, who owned the jeep.

“She gave me this story that my husband recently died unexpectedly of a heart attack, I just can`t bear to look at it, and then came back and said, I`ll even let it go for a thousand dollars instead of two,” said Evans.

The woman even sent Evans an invoice that looked like it was from eBay, with a money-back guarantee.

 “That looked so professional that I was like okay, well this does look legitimate,” said Evans.

But then, she looked at the fine print, which required payment in eBay gift cards.

 “That`s always red flags right there,” said Tim Maniscalo, CEO, Better Business Bureau of Central Indiana.

Maniscalo warns that if you have to pay in gift cards, it`s a scam. And that story about the woman`s husband dying suddenly?

“They love to get you in an emotional state so that you think you`re doing something good or really not thinking with your head, really common,” said Maniscalo.

Evans has become pretty good at spotting scams, and has advice for anyone shopping for a bargain deal online.

“When they`re showing pictures of a beautiful almost new-looking vehicle and they`re trying to sell it for a thousand, two thousand dollars, that should send up some alarms.”