Is there anything worse than a liar? Whether it's a little white lie (annoying) or a big life-ruining one (infuriating), there's no denying it. Dishonesty sucks—and unfortunately, these wild stories about real-life liars are proof.
1. She Walked Right Into That One...
My boyfriend used to work the third shift at a popular gas station on the East coast. He worked with one of those notoriously terrible coworkers who calls in sick all the time with a ton of wild excuses. Well, one night, she called in saying that she was sick, that she was vomiting and feverish, and that she was sorry, but there was no way that she could come in.
The only person available to take her shift that night was the district manager, who happened to be in the area for a meeting. So, the district manager comes in and works the cash register with my boyfriend. At around 3 in the morning, who should walk in but the supposedly sick coworker! Oh, but it gets even better than that.
She was clearly wasted beyond belief and had innocently come in to buy two rolls of Tums, thinking that one of her friends would be there filling in for her. When she reached the front of the checkout line to discover that the district manager was the one who had actually taken her shift that night, she was fired on the spot.
2. Ain’t It Funny How Time Slips Away?
The first watch that I ever owned was very special to me. It was an Omega, and I had saved up a ton of money for months back in high school in order to be able to get it. During class one day, one of my good friends asked if he could wear it for the rest of the period. He promised that he would give it back right at the end of lunch.
He begged and begged me for a chance to wear it. So, being a high school kid who didn’t really know how to say no, I finally caved and said, “Okay, I guess. Just make sure you give it back.” Weak on me, obviously. But boy, did I learn my lesson. When lunch was over and he brought it back to me, I looked at the watch and I was shocked. I could have beat him up right then and there.
Apparently, he smashed the glass to test it and see if it was truly unbreakable like he had heard. He hit it as hard as he could and completely destroyed it. He then assumed it was a fake and that this was why the glass had cracked. When he brought it back to me and I confronted him about why it was broken. He tried to claim that he had never smashed it and that it had just fallen apart on its own.
Needless to say, I didn’t believe him for a moment. That jerk grew up and went on to become a medical doctor. He is now involved in politics and holds state office. I’m still angry about the watch. To this day, he has never admitted that he broke it. I suspect that he was salty and jealous of me having the watch all along. He was a total jerk then, and he’s still a total jerk now.
3. A Good, Long Look At The Man In The Mirror
One time, I was picking up a sofa from this random guy’s house. I found him on Kijiji and I thought that the item was a good deal, so I agreed to buy it and pick it up from him. When I got there, this guy stopped me right before I was about to leave. He said he just wanted to ask if I might also be interested in buying a mirror that he was looking to get rid of as well.
I wasn't really interested in it, but my wife seemed keen. So we followed him into his hallway to check the thing out. He showed the mirror to us and said: "It was a gift from my son-in-law. It's a beautiful mid-century antique. Since you guys have been so nice to me, I'm willing to let it go for just seventy-five dollars if you’re interested."
I indicated that I didn’t think it was something that I would have any reason to want to buy. He responded by going on and on about what an amazing mirror it was. He even told me to "pick it up and feel how sturdy it is!" I decided to humor him and pick it up. It was really very heavy, actually, despite what he had just said.
That probably should have been the first red flag that I picked up on. As I was holding it up, I happened to take a peek at the back of it. That's when I had my "gotcha" moment. Very clearly still on it, I spotted a sticker from a thrift store with a thirty-dollar price tag. I kind of chuckled to myself and decided to have a bit of good old-fashioned fun with this little discovery of mine.
So I asked the guy if he would consider going any lower than seventy-five dollars with his price. He said: "I would if I could, but unfortunately I really can't afford to do that." I then responded with: "Well, I can see a tag from Value Village on the back here..." I’ve never seen a person’s facial expression change so drastically that fast.
We ended up getting the "mid-century antique" mirror for just fifteen dollars, and me and my wife still laugh to this day about the amazing deal we got on it.
4. Check the Texts
My ex-girlfriend told me she was going to a "girls only" pool party with some of her fellow waitresses from the restaurant she worked at. I had felt something weird going on for a bit and had put a lot of effort into making that night a surprise "date night." I worked that morning, while she worked in the evening. While she was at work I cleaned the whole apartment (that we shared), cooked a fancy surf and turf dinner with filet mignon, lobster tails, butter pasta, expensive wine, etc.
I also rented a few movies I knew she would like. So when after dinner she suddenly told me she was going to this pool party at around 10 pm (!!!) and I couldn't come I was pretty exasperated and knew something was not right. Noticed she was putting her phone face down every time she received a text about this party. While she is putting on her sexiest bikini to wear under her clothes on her way over to this party, I decide to look at the phone.
It's some dude from her work (under the name Angela in her phone), telling her he can't wait to see her, can't stop thinking about the other night, etc. Scroll down a bit and they even said they loved each other. There's not really a worse feeling in the world when you are in love with someone and they do that to you. She comes back into the room and queue one of the worst nights I've ever had as she blames all of this on me not proposing to her quickly enough (we were 22, relatively poor, and in college and I did want very much to marry her).
She trashes the apartment, breaks the screen off of my laptop, cuts up a few of my favorite shirts, and breaks MY phone after going through it looking for some sort of justification for her actions and finding none by throwing it at the wall and stomping on it. But hey...it was satisfying knowing that I wasn't going crazy and I learned some valuable life lessons.
5. The Ties That Bind Us
I created a binder for a hotel that my company owns and filled it with forms and templates. I highlighted and wrote clear explanations of everything on each page. About a month later, I go over to the property to assist with some things, and the GM brings out the binder and says, "Yeah, I just put this together as a tool for us here."
I immediately tell him, "No, you didn't. I made that and gave it to you." His face went white as he tried to recover by saying, "Well, I added a few things." He didn't. I definitely loved the faces of my colleagues when I went back to the office and told them all about it!
6. Mike Drop
My ex once told me that she was sick and that she therefore couldn't go out with me that night. Fine, whatever. Well, I had previously been introduced to her best friend. For some reason, her best friend was mad at her on that particular night, and so she decided to call me up and let me know that my girlfriend was cheating on me with some guy named Mike.
She even told me what street he lived on. So, I drive down this street looking for her very unique car, with its easily-identifiable personalized license plate. At first, I didn't see it anywhere. Then, as I'm starting to drive away, I suddenly notice that there's a little alley behind the houses. Sure enough, there was her car.
I go back to the front door and knock. Some dude answers and I say "Is Mike here?" "Yeah, he's up in his room" he says, pointing up the stairs by the door. "First door on the right?" "No, left." Then this dude just stands aside to let me in. I walk up the stairs, open the door, and there's my girlfriend putting her shirt back on.
"Hey guys, what's going on?" I say. All she says is "WHAT THE HECK???!!!" while the dude ducks back into bed to hide under the blankets. She immediately goes into crazy-person mode, asking me how I found her and how I got inside, while this guy just keeps on saying "Dude, I did NOT know that she had a boyfriend! Why didn't you tell me?" over and over again.
He was a short "little feller," and at the time I was in the army and in the best shape of my life. The situation was so messed up that I just had to giggle a bit, but I quickly returned to reality and walked out of there before I lost control and physically hurt someone. The roommate who had let me in, even after hearing all the commotion, was just sitting there playing Playstation. I nodded to him on my way out and said "thanks" before continuing out the door.
7. A Banquet Fit For A King
Back when I was a high school student, a classmate of mine once came up to me and told me that he makes over twenty dollars an hour working part-time as a banquet server. I had done the exact same job at the exact same place and made only $6.30 an hour. I told him he was straight up lying to me, but he was adamant that he wasn't.
I told him to bring me one of his pay stubs to prove that he really made that much, and he simply said: "I don't have one." How convenient! This guy just regularly lied about all kinds of stuff, but this was the first one that I actually made a point to remember. It was just too ridiculous to forget. I'll never understand compulsive liars.
For crying out loud, I’m pretty sure even our manager wasn't making twenty dollars an hour at that job!
8. You Can't Hide Your Lying Pink Eye
I work at a daycare. If a child is sick they will be sent home cause we don’t want to risk infecting the whole class (generally happens anyway). A lot of parents don’t agree with this policy which leads to parents arguing with us that their kid isn’t sick when they obviously are. My favorite time this happened was when a mother dropped her little boy off in an eye patch.
Yep, the toddler was wearing a darn eye patch. I asked what happened and she says he hit his eye or something. Which I didn’t really believe. But it gets worse. She says whatever I do, don’t take off his eye patch. I pick him up and immediately lift up his eye patch...pink eye. She was sooooo furious with me for doing that. And, she was shocked I did it.
The look on her face was so satisfying. Although I got yelled at by my supervisor for it.
9. Court Of Lies
A year had gone by with no settlement in what should have been a very simple divorce (no children, no remarkable assets or property). Instead, it had been nothing but lies, harassment, and threats from this attorney who had just recently got her law license back after having it suspended for a year. There was a lot of stuff that had transpired, but the last straw was when I begrudgingly agreed to pay $1,500 in fees to her attorney because I just wanted the nightmare to end.
After she got the cashier's check, she claimed to have “destroyed” the check because it wasn’t made out to her and instead it was made out to my ex, as ordered by the court. A few emails followed as I canceled the cashier's check. She tried to have my ex cash out the check while demanding another one in her name or else...
After a year of nonstop threats and lies, we had had it. We filed sanctions against her. It had been three months since the incident and they weren’t producing a settlement as ordered and when they finally did on the day of the sanctions hearings, it was more of a document to implicate myself rather than a settlement.
She had filed counter-sanctions against me for filing sanctions against her. That made us file a second order for sanctions against her because she basically tried to blackmail me by saying that she’ll lift her sanctions against me if we pay her $5,000. For the entire year and a half at this point it had seemed like my ex and her crazy attorney had always gotten their way and that their consistent harassment and lies had been rewarded by the courts.
I was shocked when at the sanctions hearing the judge started with a few simple questions to both sides and then immediately tore into my ex’s attorney for 15 minutes. I mean tore into, like yelling at her and telling her how much of an embarrassment this is to the court system. It was surreal to me. What was even more surreal to me was when I got the judge’s ruling 90 days later.
It was a document written by the judge who meticulously reviewed our case and basically wrote a 35-page thesis on it. It called out all of the lies from my ex’s attorney. It was unbelievable to see on paper by an impartial judge, calling out my ex and her attorney on all of their lies and their abhorrent behavior. My ex had to pay back the fees, her attorney had to pay me $2,000, which means she had to report herself to the state bar.
If she didn’t, the judge did it for her anyways by mailing the entire ruling to the bar. Last I heard, she made her law license “in-active” and moved to another state to be a waitress.
10. The Real Cancer Is Your Lies
I knew a guy who said that he had thyroid cancer, which later spread to lung cancer, then later spread to "unknown" cancer. His radiation treatment made him radioactive, so he had to spend nearly every day at his camper (it was over the summer, so he had a camper at a camping site), while his wife stayed home with his five children. It gets so much worse.
He had these mysterious "special treatments" in Chicago, so he needed money from his family to go to Cancer Center of America for the treatments. No one was allowed inside with him due to "top level" security, so if anyone went to Chicago with him, they had to stay at the hotel all day while he was gone. He also got money from fundraisers through his church for vacations with his wife.
He was granted extra vacation at work, burned through it, burned through his FMLA, and eventually quit his job. Because he was so sick and couldn't work, other people started paying his bills. When asked by one of the friends to prove that he has cancer and was in treatment, he said he couldn't get access to his medical records because he is taking an "experimental special treatment."
When asked for the name of the clinic, he named a very small private practice clinic in a town of about 1,000 people (it is not an oncology clinic). He said that the cancer technician there gives him the treatments, but he couldn't reveal the name of the medications due to security reasons. He also said he could not give the name of the doctor due to security reasons.
It went on like this for over a year. Finally, he declared one day that he was cured. A party was thrown in his honor. Money poured in to pay his remaining medical expenses (no bills were ever produced as evidence). Not a single person ever attended a medical appointment with him. No proof was ever seen (no bottles of medicine, etc.). His physical appearance never changed. It was insane.
11. Driving Everyone Crazy
My freshman year of high school, there was a girl who claimed to have her driver’s license already, even though we were all too young. It was pretty funny to see her face when she showed up in my driver’s ed class that you needed to complete before getting your license. The very next day at lunch, she tried to lie about it again.
So I told her to show everyone her license to prove it. She tried to make up some story, so I told everybody that she was lying and that I had seen her in my class. She also once got caught telling the volleyball team that her brother was dead—and when someone said something to her mom about it, it came out that she never even had a brother…
12. Sounds Like Someone Has Bigger Fish To Fry
Back when I was only sixteen years old, I used to have a huge crush on one of my coworkers at my first job. He liked me back, too. I thought things were going pretty well between us until I asked him if he wanted to go out on our shared day off. He agreed at first, but then canceled on the day of and told me that it was because he needed to take care of his fish.
I thought it sounded suspicious. When I told a few of my friends about the excuse, they told me not to trust this guy. They knew him personally as well and they warned me that he was notorious for being a pathological liar. I was really upset, and I went on and on ranting to my friends about how rude it was of him to not even bother to come up with a believable lie to give me.
Now here comes the plot twist. A few of those friends that I had vented to were all hanging out and they decided to go to Walmart later that day. While they were there, they ran into my crush. And guess what he was doing—buying food and supplies for his fish. He walked over and told them all how excited he was about getting the new fish, too.
So, either he saw them coming and quickly scrambled to make it look like his story had been true, or he was actually telling the truth all along. Either way, I kind of felt like the biggest jerk in the world when I heard that.
13. Room And Bored
An ex-housemate of mine was by far the most chronic liar that I have ever met in my entire life! She was also a total nutjob in general. She routinely swiped my belongings whenever we were out. She swiped things from her workplace too. On one occasion, she even keyed my car. But that’s probably a story for another time. Despite all her other ridiculous qualities, her lying alone deserves a whole slew of attention in its own right. Here are some of her most memorable lies, all from the short time that we were living together:
She claimed that her dad was the ex-CEO of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. She claimed that she was having a steamy affair with one of the shift managers at the bar we worked at, despite the fact that he was very happily engaged to someone else. She claimed that the venue manager tried to physically take advantage of her and that the security guards from our work knew about it but kept it quiet at her request.
She once pointed at a wedding ad on a passing bus and said that the model in the picture was her. Of course, the bus was moving so fast that I couldn't see the model's face clearly. How convenient! Another time, there was a car accident in the area that tragically ended the lives of several local teenagers. Even that horrid moment wasn’t safe from her lies.
She inexplicably tried to claim that she had been with those kids in the car that night but got out of the vehicle just minutes before the accident took place. She also claimed that she could do a bond clean all by herself, i.e. the very elaborate clean that you have to do in order to get your rental deposit back. When she told us about this alleged talent, we asked her to use it to clean our place out for us.
Long story short, we had to go back and redo it, because she literally didn't do anything right. She also claimed that her dad was a terrible person and that he mistreated her and her sisters while they were growing up. I asked her sisters about this. They all claim that this was the farthest thing possible from the truth. And, to top it all off, she also claims that she had her license to be a shift manager at our workplace, but that she didn’t want to tell our boss about it.
Now, this license she was claiming to have was a pretty lucrative qualification that was required by law to work in the management positions at the type of venue we worked at. Everyone wanted to get that certification and the opportunities that come with it. Yet, despite claiming to have earned it, she insisted that she wanted to keep it a secret so that she wouldn’t get promoted. She apparently didn’t want that kind of additional responsibility.
Even after all this time, “Wow” is all I can say when I think about this long list of her outrageous claims.
14. In The Crosshairs Of A Shaky Alibi
Paramedic here. A woman was shot. We arrive on scene and she has a single gunshot wound in her right thigh, minimal bleeding, and she is standing up and limping while talking to the officers. She is very polite and nice and thanks us for coming to help her. She said she was walking in the parking lot of a restaurant when she saw a blue car drive by.
Then someone leaned out with a pistol, and then she felt something hit her leg. We help her to the truck, I bandage her wound, give her some pain medicine and on to the hospital we go. She jokes about how she’s in the wrong place and the wrong time and is having an unlucky day. Oh, how I wish I'd been suspicious at the time.
We arrive at the ER, and I’m giving my report to the trauma team there when an officer on scene quietly comes into the room. I’m telling the patient’s story to the docs when the officer gets this huge grin on his face then nods at me to come outside. What he told me blows my mind. First, he told me that a blue car pulled up just when we left the scene.
Then, law enforcement checked the camera to see my patient inside the restaurant, yelling at the driver of the blue car. They leave the restaurant trying to get away from her, but my patient is chasing her. The video from the parking lot then shows my patient going to her vehicle and getting a pistol out. She starts to run after the other person. There’s a flash on the camera and the patient starts limping.
Ladies and gents, she shot herself in her leg.
15. Burying The Lead
I recently found out that my brother is only my half-brother. Our parents—well, the people who we thought were both our parents—were never married to one another. My mom has insisted for my whole life that my dad is my brother's dad. He never acknowledged his relation to my brother; though he did acknowledge his relation to me.
He had been claiming that the man my mom was living with at the time was probably his father. My mom always said that the other fellow was simply her roommate. Given that my dad was frequently intoxicated and also a chronic liar and that our mom has never been someone to lie to make herself look better, we always believed our mom and never doubted her version of the story. Also, my brother looks pretty much exactly like my dad does in an old army photo, so that made us less skeptical.
But then my brother got an ancestry DNA test done and everything changed. He found out he has no German ancestry at all, even though our dad's side of the family is super German. Then, I got a test done and he showed up as a close match, but with 99% certainty that he was only a half-sibling. So we dug into this a little more.
We discovered that my half-sister from my dad's side's son showed up as a match on my test, but not on his. Also, all of the cousins on my dad's side showed up on mine but not on his. The only relatives that we have in common are from our mom's side of the family. We were basically left with the certainty that our mom has been wrong all these years.
Again, I swear to you that this woman does not lie to make herself look better. It just doesn't occur to her. I mean, I was in elementary school when she told me that my birth was the result of an intoxicated attempt to get her ex-boyfriend to leave his wife for her. This woman is really a lot more honest than she probably should be, by all accounts.
We've actually decided not to raise the issue with her. Either she's gone 50 years not knowing the actual father of her eldest child, or there's enough trauma there to make an unusually honest woman lie. In any event, this is just one more small bit of weirdness in our weird family. Oh, and also, my brother is legally my uncle.
16. Women’s Intuition
I'm a lawyer. Before trial, I was trying to convince my client to give his ex-wife $200 in child support while he was looking for a job. There was just one problem, though: It turns out my client already had a job...but he had requested his bosses to pay him under the table, so that he wouldn’t have to pay any child support.
I tried to explain that if we go into the courtroom with a pre-arranged agreement between my client and his ex-wife, my client would get a way better deal than if he makes excuses and says he can’t pay anything at all. If he tries that, the judge will probably make him pay much more than $200/month. Even so, my client kept saying he couldn’t pay that much because he was jobless and poor—even though he wasn’t.
After fighting with him about how the judge won’t care about this and how he should be a decent parent and take care of his kids, he said to me, “I should have gotten a male lawyer, women just don’t get it.” My jaw dropped, and then I told him exactly what I thought of him. Since I was defending this idiot for free, I told him that he was trash.
Then I said he could use the 20 minutes until his hearing started to look for another lawyer.
17. Total Eclipse Of The Art
Someone stole my art back in high school. They used it and paraded it around as their own, after they had asked me to draw them something for free—which I only did because I was 17 years old and stupid. They even tried to pass the piece that I drew for them off as their own at a school art exhibit. I was furious and mortified.
As soon as I saw the person, I confronted him in the hallway about it in front of dozens of people. All of my friends knew about my art style and would recognize it instantly, but these strangers obviously didn’t—so they were very intrigued by my accusations. I loudly said, "You're a talentless piece of trash, you freaking art thief. You stole my art! That picture was drawn by me, not you!"
The guy just stood there staring at me, saying nothing in response. His friends even left his side at that point, wanting to avoid any further embarrassment. He got called to the principal’s office and his parents got called in as well. He made a phone call to his parents while I sat in the office lobby, and I heard him apologize to his dad for having gotten into trouble.
I then got to listen and watch him as he attempted to explain what he had done to his parents. It was awesome. Screw that lying pile of garbage, he deserved the humiliation that he got!
18. Paperback
I once had a very crazy roommate who I had found on Craigslist during a fit of desperation when I was very poor and had just left an abusive ex. Me and my crazy roomie shared a bunk bed in a master bedroom in a home that was owned by our landlords. We had this arrangement where we would alternate who bought the toilet paper for the house.
One time, I bought a really big pack of the stuff. Halfway through the big pack, the rest of it just disappeared. She then bought a puny little pack of four from the dollar store, and accused our landlords of having stolen the rest of what I had bought. I had a hunch—so one day when she was out, I went rifling through her stuff.
Sure enough, I found the rest of the toilet paper that I had bought hidden in her dirty laundry hamper. After washing my hands about 10 or 20 times, I stowed it in the trunk of my car (along with everything else valuable that I owned), and didn't bring it up again. I just sat back and waited for her to bring it up to me.
She came to me the next day, nervous and stammering incoherently about how it was her friend who had misplaced the toilet paper. She had obviously noticed it was gone and assumed that I had found it. I simply said "Oh, you found it! Where was it?"—to which she had no response. The next time it was my turn to buy the toilet paper, I bought just one roll—almost daring her to say anything about it.
I only stayed in that house for another month because I had already paid for it—but she got kicked out even before I left for messing up one of the rooms while the landlord and his family were away. Dorthy (no, that's not a misspell) was a real class act. I have so many awful stories about her, especially considering that we only lived together for two months.
19. Wear It As A Badge Of Honor
An employee of mine once took a half day off of work so that he could attend a parent-teacher conference for his kid in the afternoon. He was supposed to work the morning shift, but he called in at the last minute and said that it had all been bumped up and that he could no longer come in for his scheduled shift in the morning.
Then, he kept calling back over and over again every half hour or so, each time claiming that the meeting was getting further delayed. This pattern went on all day, until he finally showed up at around 4:00 in the afternoon. He insisted that the school had now bumped his appointment up to 10:00 am the next day.
The kicker in all of this? While he was telling me about this, he had apparently forgotten that he was wearing a visitor's badge sticker from the school on his shirt that clearly said: "Checked in at 2:00 pm."
20. Cheaters Never Prosper
I knew my ex-wife was cheating but didn’t tell her that I knew. I took her out to dinner and I casually asked questions about who she had been spending time with while I was at sea, she barely worked, so she had to spend her time doing something. She failed to mention the guy that had been staying at my house for nearly two months.
This was a guy she had to call law enforcement on just to get to leave because I was coming home in two days...soooo, I slid her a copy of the report that was filed for the incident and watched as she crumbled over the fact she had been caught, and I didn’t have to say a word.
21. The Wearing of the Green
I was at a music festival that requires guests to wear a white bracelet, while the musicians are required to wear a green one. This random guy was trying to impress a female friend of mine. He was telling her that he’s a musician and that he’s playing a gig the next day and that she should come watch. He was using the musician thing to basically get her to like him.
I was there with her the whole time, listening to the guy. Finally, at the end of his long session of bragging and attempted flirting, I just bluntly asked him why he was wearing a general admission white bracelet instead of a green one. He was confused. I then explained to him how the bracelets worked.
My friend and I had a nice little chuckle while he awkwardly walked away.
22. We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Program
I was renting a house with two roommates in Michigan. One of them (whom we’ll call S) and I had made an agreement about keeping the furnace low to try and keep our costs down. It was also because S's room was in the middle and apparently got ridiculously hot at night—so hot that she admitted to cracking the window open sometimes.
We had talked to the other roommate (whom we’ll call E) about it and she was on board—or at least so she claimed. E constantly turned the heat up, sometimes even a good 8 degrees hotter than we had all agreed to. It would be one thing if she was legitimately cold—this was Michigan in the winter, after all. But, no.
She would crank the heat up and then just wear skimpy clothing. It was pretty frustrating that she wasn't even trying to layer up before turning the furnace up. Not only that, but she would come home from school, turn the heat up, and then leave for the weekend less than 15 minutes later. It was ridiculous, and it got even worse.
One of her go-to excuses for the heat being higher was that the furnace was programmed to turn it up at a certain time of day (which it only was because she had programmed it that way). So, one weekend when she was back at her parents' house, I reprogrammed it back. Monday rolls around, I get back from class, and the furnace is up again.
I turn it down and go confront E about it. She predictably said the heat was only up because it was programmed that way. I called her a liar flat out. She shouted at me a bit and called me a jerk, then went into her room to sulk.
23. Sinking to New Lows
This girl at my high school lied to everyone about having breast cancer. She even got "counseling" from a teacher who actually did have breast cancer, and who has since passed on. Eventually, everyone found out that she was just lying about the whole thing to get attention. I doubt we'll be seeing her at a high school reunion any time soon.
24. Falsus in Uno, Falsus in Omnibus
We used to know this girl who would compulsively lie about the littlest things—so we were always kind of wondering if she was lying about other things too. Mainly, we wondered if she was lying about having epilepsy. Well, she faked a fit in front of a group of us once at a party. She started pretending to shake, fell dramatically to the floor, and so on.
She then stopped, confirmed that people were looking and paying attention, and then continued. We told her to stop and that she was obviously faking it. She left the party.
25. He’s Not a Poet, And He Didn’t Even Know It
A fellow author was bragging to me about how his unique literary talents in the areas of characterization and voicing are the reason why his books are so good. I took a full page of dialogue out of his latest work and edited out the names. I then read it to him and asked him if he could tell me which of the characters was which. He could not.
Bonus points? It was a romance novel. The dialogue was between the two leads. Yea. I’m gonna go with he didn’t actually do any of the writing, despite his claims of being some kind of literary genius.
26. Reading Between the Lines
Some guys came into the bookstore I was working at during Black Friday and tried to tell me that a male coworker had given them the okay for a steep discount on something. I flat out told them that they were definitely lying, because I was the only guy who worked there. Not just the only one now, but the only one ever—since the store first opened more than two years prior.
Every other worker right up to the manager was female. In full disclosure, the district manager was a guy—but if he gave discounts, it was via an official email with an attachment and his personal signature. He would also call us as soon as he issued any discount certificate to give us some advance warning.
So I’m gonna go with it was not him...
27. You Used to Call Me on My Cell Phone
My ex-husband: "No, I am not having an affair!" Me: "Well then why do I have two hundred pages worth of IMs, texts, and emails with explicit content sent between you and this girl?" Him: "I, uh, I was hacked!" Me: "For 4 and a half years?" Him: "Y...yes?" Me: "How did the hackers get these 37 photos of you without clothes on?" Him: (and I kid you not, he really said this): "That's not me."
Spoiler: it was definitely him. It clearly showed his unique birthmark, his pasty fatness, and every other distinguishing feature about him. Nice try, hubby!
28. The Best Things in Life Are Free
I recently called a customer out at my job for lying. The customer claimed that I had promised her a product for free, when in fact all I had actually done was offer her a significant discount for it. Nevertheless, she came in demanding it for free and, of course, I refused. She then claimed that she had a recording of me saying that it would be free.
I don't know what her end game was with making that claim, but I told her that if she could play me the recording and prove that I had somehow screwed up and said that by mistake, then I would honor my promise and indeed give her the product for free. She then refused to play me the recording, allegedly because I was “being difficult.”
At that point, I called her out for having made this all up and told her that she would not be getting this product for free. She actually had the nerve to then ask for my boss's number, and my boss's boss's number, so that she could complain about me not giving her the $400 product for free—and she actually thought that they would side with her.
While my direct boss actually ended up increasing the discount that I had offered her—which was fine in this case, and it was only a small increase—he still refused to give her the product for free, refused to give her more people's contact info so she could go up the chain with more complaints, and said that if she didn't act within a few hours, the deal would be void.
He told her that there was no benefit to our company in just giving stuff away for free (as is likely the case in most companies), and that there was no reason why I or any other employee would have ever made her that offer. He told her that she had no basis for a complaint, and that he wasn't going to help her. And that was the end of that!
29. I Know You Are, But What Am I?
A dude once tried to falsely accuse two of the kindest souls out there of forcing themselves onto a girl. So, I simply asked him “How do you know the details if you weren’t there?” He just stared at me blankly for a minute before saying “She (as in, the girl) told me.” He didn’t see her standing in the crowd and listening to all this, but I did. So, I just asked her, “Hey, is this true?”
She said no, it was not—and that, in reality, he (the accuser) was the one who had actually tried to force himself on her, while Nice Dude 1 and Nice Dude 2 were actually there to save her.
30. Time on Her Hands
During the first week of a new school year, our principal sent a group email out to all of the staff, scheduling every single meeting that teachers were required to attend for the next six months. I replied publicly, stating that I was unavailable at the particular time of day that she had chosen for our weekly meetings to be at.
This was actually pretty reasonable, as she had moved them to be a full hour later than when they had been the previous semester. She replied saying that every single meeting that we've ever had has been held at this same time, so I had no excuse for not being there. I was pretty incensed at the accusation, but I knew what to do.
At that particular point, I was the only teacher there who had also worked there the previous semester—so none of the teachers who were currently employed could have known what time we had held our meetings at last semester. Instead, I replied publicly with several screenshots showing each of the emails scheduling our meetings from the previous semester, at the correct time.
She suddenly changed the meetings back to the correct time.
31. Pickpocketed
When I was young, I had these tiny magnetic figures that I always loved to play with. One time, I was at a friend's house and I had just bought a new pair of them. When I was about to go home, I noticed that one was suddenly missing. I got very sad and asked my friend if he had seen it. He said no. But I knew that he had always been the liar type of guy, so I searched his pockets.
I found it right there in his back pocket. He started saying stuff like, "I didn't know it was there, it must have been my brother that took it!" I felt like an awesome detective afterwards.
32. Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One...
This guy I know was once telling a whole group of us the "glorious" story of how he epically struck out with a girl at the local bar. The only problem was, it was actually my story—and not even a good one, to be perfectly honest. That’s right, this guy was describing events that had happened to me, and presenting them as though they had happened to him.
I guess he was just trying to seem cool by pretending to have been the one involved. Now, there happened to be a few people among our group who had already heard this story from me, and they clearly recognized it. So, a couple of minutes in, everyone slowly begins shooting me glances as the guy is going on about it, obviously all knowing what’s going on.
No one said anything to him, and he just kept going and going, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I was the person who he had heard this story from in the first place. Presumably, he mistakenly thought he had heard it somewhere else. Eventually, I couldn't resist. Right when he got to the end, I cut him off and said, "Oh, hold on, I remember how this went—it ends when she says 'her girlfriend wouldn't like that very much!'"
All of the blood instantly drained from the guy’s face as it suddenly hit him that I was the one he had stolen the story from. The rest of the group just burst out into laughter. I did feel sort of bad for him after, but oh well...
33. We All Scream for Ice Cream
My best friend’s favorite story is from when she was working at McDonald’s. She was on drive-thru duty and a guy came by complaining about some bad ice cream that he had purchased earlier. That's when everyone who worked there gathered around the window to watch. My friend casually let this person know that they haven't had a working ice cream machine at this location in over four months. Person had no reply.
34. Say Cheese!
I was waiting at a red light behind a red BMW. I happened to notice that its bumper was kind of messed up. The light turns green, and he starts going. I slowly begin to accelerate like any normal human. Then, all of a sudden, he slams on his brakes and I do the same. I didn’t hit him at all. He then reverses directly into my car, turns on his hazards, and pulls into the parking lot of a nearby shopping complex.
We exchange information. I remain absolutely calm the entire time. Later, we went to small claims court (after rejecting his claim with my insurance). He says: "Yes, your honor, he rear-ended me, and therefore owes me $5 thousand in damages—including a new paint job, plus an additional thousand for emotional distress, as I have needed physical therapy ever since." The judge, looking over at me, asks, "And you say that you have a video of the entire incident?"
I say yes, hand the DVD over to the bailiff, and it clearly shows he's lying. The judge asks: "So, is that you in the video?" to him. He just stammered. They detained him on the spot and he had to pay me over $5 thousand in damages. Get a dashcam people!
35. Won The Battle
I called my mom out for smoking while pregnant, and for continuing to do so while nursing. No one believed me. I got whooped, grounded, and ostracized by my whole family. Six years later, my parents were getting a divorce. My mom admits in court that she had smoked while she was pregnant and while she was nursing. I felt triumphant because I was vindicated. But really, as "triumphant" as that moment was, the whole incident really messed up my relationship with my family, and I've suffered a lot because of it.
36. The New French Revolution
I speak French as a second language, though I’m slowly starting to lose the skill due to lack of use on my part. But I digress. While my skills in the language were still pretty good, one of my college guy friends started dating a girl who claimed to be from France. He was excited because she could talk to me in her native language and I could help translate.
So he brought her to a party at my sorority house and introduced us to one another. I greeted her in French with a very simple set of phrases: “Bonjour, bienvenue, comment ça va?” This literally just means: “Hi, welcome, how are you?” I got a blank stare and a red face from her in response. She then said, in what I thought was a kind of strange accent, that she was sorry, but that she didn’t understand me.
I looked at the guy and said: “I thought you told me she was French?” I figured maybe she was actually a different nationality and that my friend had gotten confused. He looked over at her and she immediately turned and left. He followed her. Then, a little bit later, he returned and said he had caught up to her. What happened next was shocking.
She started screaming at him in perfect, Midwestern-accented English that he was a jerk for setting her up to look like a fool. He had genuinely been excited that he could introduce her to someone she could talk to, so he was blown away by her accusations. She apparently felt that faking an accent would make her more appealing or something.
I would see her around on campus after that, but she always avoided me like the plague. To be honest, I felt pretty bad for her at that point. But, in fairness, if you’re going to try and fake something like that, at least pick a country with a language that you can speak! It was probably the least effort I’d ever seen put into a lie of that kind of magnitude.
37. Evaluating The Evaluation
I was being evaluated for job performance by a boss who clearly had an ax to grind with me. Naturally, she wrote up an unflattering report. She was not impressed when I went to her supervisor and brought up the fact that she had never actually observed me on the job, that her report had changed three or four times before the final one had come out, and that she had contradicted her previous report from only three months prior in her final one.
It was painfully clear to everyone that the eval was completely biased.
38. Band On The Run
When I was a kid, the internet wasn't a thing yet. So, my friends were whoever happened to live in the same neighborhood as me. One kid from down the street was a well-known liar and exaggerator. We were maybe about fourteen years old at the time when he started telling everyone he could play guitar. He was always talking himself up and bragging about "his band."
I remember that he actually could play reasonably well, but his "band" did not exist. One day, I dialed his house number, hoping to get a hold of him. I don't remember what the call was initially about, but a few minutes into the conversation, he told me, "By the way, I'm in Florida right now with my band." He said this just completely out of the blue.
Now, keep in mind that this was before pagers were even a thing, let alone cell phones. I also called his house number. I didn’t even know how to react to such an obvious and ridiculous lie as that. So I just said something like, "Uh-huh, okay." I then ended the conversation and immediately proceeded to tell all the other kids in the neighborhood about what had just happened.
39. Say Cheese!
I was waiting at a red light behind a red BMW. I happened to notice that its bumper was kind of messed up. The light turns green, and he starts going. I slowly begin to accelerate like any normal human. Then, all of a sudden, he slams on his brakes and I do the same. I didn’t hit him at all. He then reverses directly into my car, turns on his hazards, and pulls into the parking lot of a nearby shopping complex.
We exchange information. I remain absolutely calm the entire time. Later, at small claims court (after rejecting his claim with my insurance): Him: Yes, your honor, he rear-ended me, and therefore owes me $5 thousand in damages—including a new paint job, plus an additional thousand for emotional distress, as I have needed physical therapy ever since. Judge (looking over at me): And you say that you have a video of the entire incident?
Me: Yes I do, sir. Hands DVD to the bailiff. Dashcam video clearly shows what really happened. Judge: So, is that you in the video? Him: uh..uh...uh... They detained him on the spot and had to pay me over $5 thousand in damages. Get a dashcam people!
40. A Long, Long List
I once dated a girl who was a pathological liar. I didn't know that this was actually a thing at the time. When my dad originally told me about the existence of this condition, I thought he was exaggerating. Ironically, I thought he might be lying. After leaving the relationship, though, I realized how ridiculous all of the constant lies were and how stupid I was for believing them.
Among the lies: One time, she called out of work because, according to her, she was on her parents’ boat out in the ocean and the boat ran out of gas, so they had to call a friend to rescue her and her family and tow them to shore. I found out later it was actually because she had spent the previous night at a party and was completely wasted.
Her most ridiculous lie? She claims that she met Donald Trump back in 2013 or so and that she had hung out with him and his associates in Atlantic City. They allegedly invited her and her friend to join them as they drove around Atlantic City visiting his casino, eating the best food in town, and drinking top-shelf drinks. She didn't have to pay for anything the entire night.
She got mono when we were dating, but I was fine. She said that it was "anxiety-induced mono" according to her doctor, which allegedly explained why I didn't have it. This was around the same time that she had told me that she met some guy at a party who was hitting on her, but she swore she didn't hook up with him. I believed her yet again. And then I found out a week later that she was lying.
This next part is actually true, though. She was previously engaged, but she called off the engagement at the last minute. She then went to the nearest pawnshop to pawn off her engagement ring and used the money to buy drinks for herself. She totaled three cars in her lifetime, but each time she was able to convince the insurance company that it wasn't her fault so that she would basically get a free car replacement each time.
41. The Fine Print
I walked by as my buddy was clicking “yes” on "Have you read the terms and conditions?" I called him out on that.
42. You Make Me Feel So Young
Many years ago, back when I was in the fifth grade, a friend of my little group used to always try and convince us that he was friends with the band “Sublime.” He claimed that they used to hang out regularly. Among other outlandish stuff, he said that he was the person featured on the cover of their self-titled album.
He also claimed that he used to use substances with them and that he even tried an extremely expensive and dangerous substance on one occasion at one of their parties. Again, keep in mind, we were all freaking eleven years old at the time. He said all that stuff happened two years before he even moved to our school... when he would have literally been nine.
So yeah, a freaking nine-year-old did all this wild stuff with a world-famous band. That sounds fully believable and realistic, right? We constantly called him out on his lies, but he would just continue to lie and make up more ridiculous stuff out of thin air. He always found some way to cover up for whatever holes we were pointing out in the story.
We eventually stopped hanging out with him, because he was so clearly full of you know what.
43. Open Sesame
My sister's garage door wouldn't open for some reason. My husband went to check the opener and he noticed that there was a huge dent in the garage door. The dent was the exact height of the car's bumper. You know, the car that was parked inside that very garage! Nevertheless, my sister swore that she did not attempt to back out of the garage without opening the door.
44. This Claim Is Falling Flat
I used to work with a guy who was a serial liar. He pretty much could not tell the truth if his life depended on it. It was pathological, and you’d be surprised at how often the lies were just so transparent and obviously fake. He told so many memorable lines, but this one would have to be my personal favorite. Let me start by giving you some of the important background information.
Now, in the National Football League’s Scouting Combine, where they test the athletic abilities of some of the top athletes in the country, the 40-yard dash is the standard for speed. 4.5 seconds is great. 4.4 is elite. And the fastest time ever recorded I believe 4.24 seconds. That record was recorded by a star football prospect who was considered extremely unique and talented.
Now, keeping those facts in mind, allow me to inform you that this yutz I worked with claimed that back in his army days, he ran a 4.2 flat. In combat boots. Let’s just say I’m a little bit skeptical…
45. A Very Dog-Matic Belief
The greatest and most obvious lie that I’ve ever heard someone tell was: “I swear, I did not feed your dog any human food!” This was uttered by my mom, while my dog was literally puking and pooping right in front of our eyes. He made a huge mess all over my house, yet my mom still would not take responsibility for it or admit the mistake that she had so obviously made.
46. Parents Just Don’t Care
My parents always claimed that they “didn’t play favorites” between me and my siblings. I consider this to be one of the most blatant lies that I’ve ever been told. Allow me to explain why. My older brother used to always get presents on my birthday, not to mention on his own. Meanwhile, I had specifically been asking for a particular action figure from the cartoon "Street Sharks" for a long time.
I made it very clear to my parents that this was what I wanted for my birthday. I even showed my mother the exact toy that I was referring to when we were out shopping one day. Fast forward to the day my birthday arrived—I opened my presents to discover that I got clothes and new shoes, while my brother got the action figure that I asked for!
My grandma was so enraged at my mom when she found out about this. So she immediately took me to Toys R Us to pick out toys for myself. But that’s not the end of this story. It’s only the beginning. When I was 23 years old, my family once again asked what I wanted to do for my birthday. I said I just wanted to have a simple steak dinner together as a family.
Did my parents listen? Of course not! We had spaghetti and vegetarian meatballs because that was what my brother wanted to have. There was not a single steak anywhere in sight. Another terrific birthday memory for me! Also, when the Xbox 360 gaming system came out, I was in high school. I shared a room with my brother, but I had a job and he didn't.
I used my own money that I had saved up to buy a new TV and an Xbox with one of my first ever paychecks. I came home one evening after work and was so excited to play Borderlands. I got to my room and the Xbox was gone. I made some inquiries and learned that my brother had taken it to his friend’s house. But wait—it gets worse. When I told my dad about it, he simply shrugged and told me to "just deal with it."
So I decided to take a walk outside to clear my mind and calm myself down from the anger and stress. I opened up my stash jar to discover that all of my stuff and over $200 worth of cash was completely gone. Obviously, I couldn't confront my dad about my stash jar, but when I told him my money was missing, he blamed it on me and said I must have lost it.
That night, when my brother came home, he was wearing a brand new jacket and matching shoes. He was also carrying leftovers from a restaurant. That was the last straw for me. I completely lost it and beat the heck out of him. Eventually, my dad had to call the authorities to have me hauled away. I was briefly put behind bars as a result of this call.
Despite all of this, my parents continued to claim that they did not pick favorites. This moment was a bit of a turning point for me though. I began to accept that there was nothing I could do about this unfortunate situation, and I just relied on the good wishes of those who cared about me to get me through all the nonsense that my parents put me through. For a long while, I stopped talking to my parents entirely.
Sadly, the story has a very tragic and unexpected ending. To everyone’s shock and horror, my brother took his own life six years ago. This took everyone completely by surprise. Needless to say, this event drastically changed my dad's attitude and entire outlook on life. As a result, he and I have somewhat reconciled with each other.
I'm still not in any contact whatsoever with my mother, and I strongly feel that this will never change. My grandparents all passed a few years ago, and that was the last time I ever saw any of my mom’s side of the family. After that night in juvenile hall, I was released back to my dad and had two years of probation. The Xbox was there when I returned home, but I never saw the $200 or my stash ever again.
I got a locked safe after that and I’ve been very protective of all my property ever since. Some experiences just stay with you forever. It’s been many years since my childhood though, and I'm in a much better place now emotionally. I have my own son, who I adore. And I spend all my free time making sure that he's as happy as can be because I'll never be the parent that I had growing up.
I will never lie to my kids, or even dream about treating them differently and playing favorites.
47. The Right To Bear Himself
A childhood friend of mine once met up with me for coffee. This get-together came after not having seen each other at all for a few years. During this meeting, my friend casually "let it slip" that ever since he earned a black belt in karate, he has had to officially register with the state every year as a "human weapon." Well, isn’t that impressive!
48. Baby, You Can’t Drive My Car
In my job as a professional tax accountant, I am very frequently told all kinds of outlandish lies about how much money people make. People will go to great lengths to manipulate the appearance of how much they actually made over the past year. This happens all the time, and especially during tax season as you can probably imagine.
My favorite incident of all time involving a ridiculous and obvious lie was when this one client of mine told me that he was broke because he only made $35,000 a year, even though he was living in a very expensive part of New York City. He tried to use this to convince me that my very reasonable fee was too much for him to pay. But the kicker? During his consultations with me, he had asked me for my opinion on whether he could deduct the new BMW 5 series luxury car that he had just bought for his son.
He literally paid for the car in all cash. Not bad for someone who can barely afford a small tax accountant’s fee!
49. Showing Them Who’s Boss
My bosses once looked me in the eye and told me, "We cannot afford to give you a raise right now, but we will compensate you as soon as the budget allows." I later found out that "when the budget allows" really meant "when you already have another job offer and you put in your two weeks notice." Somehow, I never fully bought their lie, to begin with...
50. Letting The Cat Out Of The Bag
A few years ago, my little girl and I were shopping together at the local supermarket. To keep herself entertained while we were there, she started going up to various strangers and informing them that she was sad because our family cat had just passed. The only problem was that we didn’t own a cat, and we never did.
So, from my perspective at least, this was a pretty obvious lie…
51. A Whole Other World
I used to have a friend that would regularly spew out total nonsense all the time. She once tried to tell me that her biological parents, who live together, were secretly divorced and seeing other people, and also that she had 25 secret siblings. I innocently brought the subject up to her mom one time, which turned out to be a very interesting conversation…
She also told us that she had a terminal case of cancer, and then a week later it was miraculously cured.
52. A Sign Of Things To Come
The most blatant and demonstrable lie that I’ve ever been told was: "I never said you had to sign the document if it wasn't true!" This was said by the same person who had just sent me no less than three emails telling me to sign the document, even after I said it wasn't true. Those emails were literally sitting in her outbox as she made this claim to me...
53. Everything But The Kitchen Sink
One time, my little brother mixed like fifty condiments together. The mixture included things like sprinkles, ketchup, cereal, and a whole bunch of other random stuff. When it was all mixed together, he dumped it into a bag of popcorn and ate it. I have no idea what his goal was in doing this. Maybe he was trying to be funny or something.
Either way, the product definitely did not look like something that any normal or sane person would ever want to taste. Nevertheless, he tried to keep a straight face while telling us that his little snack was delicious. While he was saying this, his face looked like he had just eaten ten extremely sour Warheads all at once. He later admitted that he just wanted to try and get us to eat it, but we never did.
Nice try, bro! Better luck next time!
54. There’s No Defense For Stupidity
Back in the early 90s, I was at work one day making my five dollars an hour, when all of a sudden a co-worker of mine looked me straight in the eye and started speaking. He informed me that, apparently, he had just purchased a real, live, surface-to-air missile from the Chinese military and that he was keeping it secretly stored at his mom’s house in a different city so that no one would find out and catch him.
Like, what the heck dude? That story is not even remotely close to believable…
55. Gnome Is Where The Heart Is
For some reason, my young son takes every possible opportunity that he can to get naked. It’s a struggle to get him to even wear underpants half the time. One time, we found him sitting around naked in the living room. So, naturally, we asked him where his pants had gone. His answer? Bees. According to his story, bees came in through the window and ate his pants.
That lying little weasel! Everyone knows that it's gnomes who eat people’s pants!
56. What The Fork?
When I saw that my neighbor had a noticeable new scratch on her arm, I asked about it. Her response was: "Oh, it’s nothing. The cat just scratched me." Confused, I immediately responded by saying: "You literally don't own a cat though." She shrugged and replied: "My fork fell onto my arms then, or something like that." Okay, then…
I’m not quite sure exactly who or what she was trying to cover up for, but she clearly had no interest in telling me the truth about how she got that scratch.
57. Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning
I met someone who told me that he drank too much one night while he was out partying with his friends. He claims that he had an alcohol overdose and temporarily passed into the afterlife. While he was briefly deceased, his intoxicated friends apparently threw him under a bed where his body was left to rot for a full three days before he finally came back to life and went on with his day as if nothing had ever happened.
He assured me that if I didn't believe him, I could ask his friends to confirm the account. Sadly, I haven't seen him again since…
58. Old MacDonald Had A Farm
One time, back when I was a teenager, my mom innocently opened the door to my bedroom closet and unwittingly stumbled upon my secret herb farm. She confronted me about it and asked: "What is this?" Panicking, I replied: "Uhhhhhh, I’m growing some tomatoes?" I froze on the spot, waiting anxiously for her reaction.
Her response was something to the effect of: "Right… Well, be careful with those lamps." She never asked about my tomatoes again. I never did find out what she had actually been looking for when she initially opened my closet. But I think it was safe to assume that she wouldn’t be opening that door again any time soon.
59. Come Fly With Me
"I feel good enough to work today" was the biggest lie that I have ever uttered in my entire life, and by far the most dangerous one. For flight training, any time that you fly, you have to sign off beforehand confirming that you are both physically and mentally fit to fly. This means that have eaten in the past six hours and means have had a ten-hour rest period that included at least six to eight hours of sleep within the past sixteen hours.
People lie about this all the time and fly anyway despite the risks. And, as much as I hate to admit it, you can count me as one of those people.
60. Carrying Your Lucky Rabbit’s Foot
Back when I was only three years old, I once told this lie to my mom and thought that she would definitely buy it. I was coloring on the walls in the hallway with my bunny stuffed animal in my hand. I wasn’t much of a rule-breaker, so this one really stuck out to my mom. My mom came into the hallway and shouted: “What did you do?!”
I looked down at my bunny and immediately came up with my reply. “Bunny did that!” Mom, without missing a beat, replied: “Well then, please tell Bunny that he shouldn’t do that anymore because now we will have to repaint the wall and that’s not nice.” In full seriousness, I looked down at Bunny and said: “Bunny, you really can’t do that! That’s not nice.”
Meanwhile, I still had the markers in my other hand this whole time…
61. Fire And Fury
My supervisor was pretty annoyed with my crew on one occasion after we’d had some issues. She promised that no one would get in trouble if I told her the truth, so I explained to her who was responsible for the mixup. She immediately said: "Excuse me for a minute, I have to go to the bathroom." In reality, it was very obvious that she had gone to unleash her anger on my other coworker.
She should have taken them farther away if she wanted me to believe her lie, because I could clearly hear her yelling from where I was. So stupid!
62. When The Boss Is Away, The Employees Will Play
An employee at work once told me to my face during a meeting that I didn’t need to look over his task because my supervisor had already checked it over. I thought this was weird, considering that my supervisor had been off all week and left me in charge. He acted shocked when I pointed this out; like he didn’t realize I was aware of that. I’m sorry, did a ghost check your work? He didn’t think his story through at all.
63. Playing Ball
I once worked with a guy who was a compulsive liar. After working with several people like this over the years, I have come to understand that it is a very odd, yet very real, personality trait for some folks. This one guy was a New York Jets fan, as I also am. I asked him one day when the Jets were good if he had seen the playoff game the night before. This is where it gets interesting.
He told me that he was at the game. I know for a fact that he could not have been at the game because he was at work with me at kickoff.
64. Library Drama
The college administration has decimated other departments, but when it comes to our department, they’re “just” laying off a few staff. Not part-time librarians, they assured me. I had been working there for nearly thirteen years at that point. Within a month of this conversation, both of us were gone. I got rehired about five months later, but at reduced pay.
It’s been two and a half years that I’ve been back now, and agreeing to return was probably the worst decision that I ever made. But at the age of 50 with a serious mood disorder, I don’t have a lot of other options.
65. When Size Does Matter
I'm a plus size girl, and very noticeably so. One time, I walked into my boyfriend's bedroom to find a butterfly thong lying on the floor. It was a small size that would clearly never have fit me. When I confronted him about it, this dude had the audacity to look at me and say "Oh, uh, those aren't yours?" I actually started laughing out loud. No, genius, they most certainly are not…
66. Guitar Zero
This guy that I used to work with claimed he could get five gold stars on every song in Guitar Hero 2. At the time, I used to play that game every single day, and I wasn't even close to anything like this. The claim was just so farfetched. There are obviously people in the world who will have achieved this feat of excellence, but not him.
I ended up playing with him a few months later when someone brought a system into our place of work. After watching him play for just a few minutes, I became confident in my assumption. He turned out to be absolutely terrible at the game..
67. The Most Interesting Man In The World
I once worked with a habitual liar. Apparently, he owned a stake in a diamond mine, had met Nelson Mandela, had water skied the entire coast of South Africa barefoot, and could keep his eyes open when sneezing. But the very best was that he had shaped a lens by hand for a school project that was later sold to NASA, who then used it in a telescope.
68. Caught Red-Handed
One time, back in seventh grade gym class, I had to use the restroom. I went to use the one in the locker room. There was a kid at one of the lockers near mine digging through some stuff, but I didn’t think that much of it. On the way out, he was gone. I got a bad feeling about it, so I went to my locker to check on my stuff. A wave of anxiety suddenly rushed through my entire body.
My wallet, which had contained $17 in it, was now gone. The snacks that I had packed myself for lunch were also gone. I walked back out of the locker room and the dude was sitting on the bleachers, eating the snacks. I confronted him and accused him of swiping my money. He had the nerve to deny it while still literally eating my Pringles.
The teacher just said: “Nothing we can do, there are no cameras in there.” How pathetic!
69. It Never Happened
I’m a doctor. The most obvious lie that I’ve ever been told is: “There is no chance that I could be pregnant because I’ve never slept with anyone before!” Spoiler alert: this patient was pregnant. I mean, what do you think is going to happen if you just deny reality like that? Do you think I’m just gonna shrug and go “Oh, okay!” and the baby is just gonna disappear or something?
70. Lies And Basketball
I played college basketball, and one of my teammates had a chronic condition with the truth. My first summer we were roommates, and I always suspected he was stealing my clothes. At one point, every player received a custom pair of Jordans in our school's colors. But within a week mine went missing.
A month later, I noticed my roommate/teammate was wearing a pair of Jordans. Later in the day we were in a gym and I waited until we were all relaxing, and he had the soles of his shoes facing forward as he sat. I told all of my other teammates what I suspected, and approached him. "Hey, have you seen my Jordans?," "Naa, I already told you. Now leave me alone," "Then why is my number written on the soles of the shoes you're wearing?"
The team equipment staff had predicted some shoes might go missing, so they had marked each pair. I made him take the shoes off right there, since I couldn't trust I'd get them back at the end of the day. After that, his nickname on the team was Simba, for being the Lying King.
71. Story Thief
I had some hip pain when I was about 13 and got an x-ray and the tech asked me if I was pregnant and I said, "No, what?? I'm only 13." and the tech said, "We always ask, because we didn't ask a 12-year-old once and she was. . . ". A few years later I told my friend the story as an interesting anecdote and she repeated my story back to me a few weeks later. I was like, "Oh what were you having x-rayed?" and she said she didn't remember and I just nodded and let it go.
72. Trick or Treat
I caught my mom eating my Halloween candy when I was little after she told me it wasn't her. Getting new candy from the store because of it was pretty satisfying.
73. House of Lies
Sued a bloke for not paying his mortgage. He filed an application claiming he’d never been served with the court proceedings, and he’d just found them in his front yard. He also managed in two pages to set out eleven separate claimed defences to the claim. Something didn’t stack up. So I ran some Court file searches, and discovered he’d defaulted on another mortgage a few years earlier and filed the exact same affidavit back then.
Even included the exact same photos of the court documents supposedly lying in his yard. The case did not end well for him.
74. Don't Mess With Tech Support
I was working in tech support at an ISP (internet service provider) on the afternoon/evening shift. It is a smaller ISP so tech support all sits in one office about a stone's throw from each other. In the evenings there are only about 12 people working until about 7pm when it drops to about 7 people. We got a call one night from a kid (sounded about 12) who was using a deep voice trying to get info on an IP address from us.
This isn't uncommon for kids who are gaming to call tech support to try and get information so they can DDOS (distributed denial of service) someone they are mad at. The first person he got followed protocol and asked if he had a warrant then hung up (We can't give out that type of info to anyone without a warrant). Same thing happened to 3 other people over the course of about 15 minutes before he changed up his act.
I got him at that point and he said that he was agent something-or-other from the FBI and he needed info on the IP address (have you ever heard a 12 year old try to sound like an adult?). I played along and asked him if he had the account info he was looking for. He panicked at that point and said I should have it and John in customer service should have sent it to me. I informed him there isn't a John in customer service (They worked in the same office as us so I knew them all).
He was quiet for a few seconds before he tentatively tried another name and I told him I know that person. He got super excited and it was kind of funny listening to him think he was getting through. I asked him for the account info because that person had not sent it to me and the kid hung up. The next few attempts were the kid pretending to be one of my coworkers and telling people to give him the info.
Granted this was at about 8:30pm and that specific coworker had gone home at 7. At that point we were getting annoyed and just hung up on him whenever we heard his voice. As 9pm rolled around, one of my coworkers was very upset that she hadn't gotten him yet, she had this whole plan on what she was going to say to him and was super excited a few minutes after 9 when we all heard her yell across the office "I GOT THE IP GUY."
We all went on break or put calls on hold to come listen to what her plan was. The kid was pretending to be our coworker again, which was very funny for us because the person he was talking to sits right next to the person he was imitating. She acted like she was going to give him everything, he gave her the IP address he wanted info on and she got him to sing like a bird on what he was looking for.
After about a minute she said "Thank you sir, we just finished tracing your call and I am required to inform you that a member of the FBI will be swinging by shortly to pick you up to answer some questions." We could hear the kid flip out for a few seconds over her headset and then he hung up. We all lost it, that was the funniest thing we had all seen in a while and we didn't hear from him again.
Intelligent Technical Solutions
75. Calling In Sick
Once had a person work for me who would always call out and use her past health problems as a crutch to miss work all the time. One Monday she called in, gave me some generic illness excuse and said she couldn't get out of bed. That morning another department had a breakfast meeting at IHOP and saw her there eating breakfast with her friends looking like she was in perfect health. The picture evidence sent to me was oh so satisfying.
76. Hit Reply All
When I got divorced we "shared" a lawyer because it was amicable and we just agreed to keep our own stuff and move on. I was getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan in less than a week so I'm anxious to get everything done before I leave. So I get emailed the finalized divorce documents and my ex mentions my half of costs was around $2000.
What she didn't know is she had forwarded me the whole email chain with the lawyer where they discussed final billing. Turns out the total amount owed was actually about $800. So I replied and said I'd be paying $400 and explained her mistake. Her reply was simply "whatever. I don't care."
Youtube
77. Telling Rumors
I was in a bar having some beers when I feel a tap on my shoulder. It was a guy I went to school with. I didn't really hang out with him back then, but decided to catch up and share stories anyways. At one point he mentions sleeping with a girl I knew very well, a girl I knew for a fact was a virgin until after she graduated. I just kind of nodded and let him go. Then, I said something along the lines of "oh, I actually know her very well, we'll have to hit her up, she comes out and drinks with me all the time!" He turned white. The look of horror in his eyes was great.
78. Parking Violation
I travel for work. 90% of the time I park in economy at the airport (I think $14 per day). About a 10 to 15 min walk. A few times out of necessity to catch a flight I park in the garage (I think $24 per day, 5 min walk). Usually 2 to 3 day trips, not a huge expense. My boss suggests I park in Off Site Shuttle parking (about $11 a day, but a pain in the behind as you need a bunch more time to plan for the shuttle).
He said he does it, because it is cheaper for the company (which he owns). One day while walking through the garage from on site economy, there in the reserved parking (closest and like $40 per day) is my boss's truck. And reserved takes planning, he wasn't just running late and needed to park in the garage to make a flight. I just put my business card under his wiper.
I never brought it up, and I haven't heard any complaints about parking on my expense reports since.
79. Olympic-Sized Lies
Oohhh boy. So in college I had this friend who was a very good pole vaulter. Seriously, one of the top in the state for his division. This was back in 2008. He tells ALL of his family, and friends, and even his boss that he was recruited to compete in the Beijing Olympics. Well his close friends, including myself, already smell a lie, but when the "day" comes he is nowhere to be found. In fact, we didn't see him for a couple of days, and he started texting pics from Beijing.
So we were doubting ourselves a bit. Then we were driving along the freeway, and guess who's broken down on the side of the road like 2 days after he left? Mr olympian! When we pulled over the look on his face was priceless. He stood by his story too, and said because of the time difference he already went and came back. Haha he's an idiot. I still don't know what he had to gain from such an elaborate fake story.
Bonus, all the "pics from beijing" were from a google image search of beijing olympics.
80. Academic Dishonesty
Wasn't me, but a professor caught a student plagiarizing an essay... as she [the student] was reading it aloud to the class. "That's an excellent essay by my friend, Dr._____ you're reading. Please keep reading it until the end." He made her stand in front of us and kept going until "her presentation" was over.
81. Not Made of Stars
A co-worker briefly dated a guy but broke up with him when he was demeaning to her over her career. The last thing he said to her was, "I guess you and I aren't made of the same stardust." A couple of months later, she checks his Instagram and lo and behold: "Our little miracle has been born," with photos of him, a woman, and a newborn infant.
She did the math and realized that the whole time they were dating, he had a pregnant girlfriend he never mentioned. I guess they weren't made of the same stardust after all!
82. Major League Liar
I come from a small-ish town. Brother made it into the MLB (Major League of Baseball). Was at the grocery store with my dad (who was wearing the MLB team’s jacket at the time). The checker says to us “You know I helped that kid get to the majors.” My Dad just politely pulled out his ID and told him to check the last name. Checker just laughed embarrassingly, immediately shut up, and gave us extra monopoly tickets for our time.
83. Fast Lies
My daughter signed an NLI (National Letter of Intent) for track and it was kind of a big deal in our small town. Had the cashier tell me all about how she did this and that and if it wasn't for her, the girl wouldn't have "made it." Never saw the woman before and am 100% certain I was the one buying those shoes and getting her to the team bus at those ungodly hours for away meets.
Pinterest
84. Standing Up To The Boss
I had a boss who kept on getting angry at me because, "I wasn't doing what he told me to do." Finally one day, I decided to start writing down exactly what he told me, dated it, and kept record of it. Then one day came where inevitably, "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!" "Exactly what you told me to do." "I NEVER TOLD YOU TO DO THAT!"
"Well, I have it written here..." pulls out note card "On 5/22/16, you told me specifically to do this task, exactly like this, and never do it any other way." I finally won. I started standing up for myself a bit more in the office, and I was respected for it.
85. Thoughts And Prayers To This Family
His dad was a very old-school pastor and his mom was a very timid, religious nut job hoarder. I was only allowed in his parents’ house one time—when I had to use their bathroom before a road trip. When I went in, you couldn’t see the floor or countertops because everything was covered in junk. The worst part was that all of the kids grew up knowing they had to lie to their parents about everything.
For example, the kids weren’t allowed to live with their partners before marriage, so all of the older children rented apartments that they never actually lived in just so they could live with their significant others. The kids weren’t even allowed to go on dates with their significant others alone. They had to lie and say one of their siblings would be going with them.
Oh, and the parents forced one of the siblings to stay with her abusive husband because they didn’t believe in divorce. Meanwhile, they just all acted as he’d never beaten her within an inch of her life, multiple times. Dodged a bullet getting out of that family for sure.
86. Food for Thought
When I worked at a fast food joint, I once had someone call in during the opening shift while we were still prepping everything for the day. He starts telling me all about how he was just here and how our service was terrible, and how we got his order wrong. I asked him when exactly he came in, and he said about half an hour ago. I said, “Oh, that’s weird, because we don’t actually open for another 45 minutes.”
He just hung up without another word.
87. The Ex-Files
My ex-wife once told my kids that I didn't pay child support regularly. I was able to then immediately lay out each and every receipt for the past three years showing each individual payment I had made, all either on time or early. Even though I was vindicated, I wouldn’t exactly call it a triumphant moment. There are no winners in divorce.
88. A Conference Callout
We were on a conference call. A supervisor was taking credit for all of the work that had been done on a cross-departmental project. In reality, he wasn't even a part of the project; his subordinate, Craig, was. I called him out on it in front of about 40 people. I said that even Craig didn't really do any work.
The real star of the show was Leslie, the intern assigned to help us, since she actually did 75% of the work on his behalf. The supervisor got fired several months later for some other unrelated issues. A lot of people on the call reached out to me afterwards to let me know that they thought what I did was pretty awesome. That made me happy.
89. The Big Lube-owski
A lube technician at a Jiffy Lube once tried to convince me that I was in desperate need of a radiator service...for a car that didn't have a radiator. He even showed me a PH strip to "prove" that the fluid had gone acidic. I told him that if he could show me the radiator, I'd cheerfully pay for the service. The expression on his face when he opened up my car's hood and realized what I was getting at was pretty priceless.
90. The Proof Is in the Pudding
I called someone out for lying this morning. It was my wife. She said she was going to clean up after herself last night. But the countertop proved that to be a lie.
91. A Tale of Two Cities
I once called out a city councilwoman for lying live on the radio. I am a public servant, and she had lied about a government project that I had actually worked on. So, I called up the radio station (giving a fake name), got on the air with her, and called her out for it. It was definitely a fun moment!
92. Warning: This Is About to Get Graphic
I once had a graphic designer apply for a job at my marketing firm using someone else’s work in his portfolio. I asked him all about the work, and the thinking behind the designs, before I showed him the originals—and the door.
93. Proof of Purchase
I was once in an auto shop waiting room, watching one of my fellow customers angrily shouting at the guy behind the counter about how he had been waiting there for more than two hours. The shop manager just casually pulls out a piece of paper and calmly states, “We just printed the work order that you signed less than 30 minutes ago.” Well played, Mr. Manager. Well played...
94. Being Forward With Her
To make a long story short, my ex-girlfriend tried to prove to me that her ridiculous lie was a truth by creating a fake email account and using it to fabricate a "forwarded" email to me—to supposedly prove that a certain made-up person and event were real. But I suspected her all along, and I came up with a plan to expose her.
I copied the email address and tried to log into it. I hit "reset password" and it prompted me with the question Yahoo gives when resetting a password: "Complete the phone number associated with the account." I put my ex's cell number in, and she miraculously got a "reset password" text message at that exact moment.
That's when she finally admitted to the lie—and in my eyes, to all of her previous suspected lies as well.
95. Enemy-Zoned
An acquaintance of mine tried telling another friend of mine that we were dating. I told him to stop his ridiculous lies and stay away from me. Sometime later, after about six months to a year, I bumped into him again and we talked for a little bit. He then tried to claim that he was now dating a colleague of his who I had once met.
I didn't believe him for a second, so I found her on Facebook and asked her about it. As I had suspected all along, it was a total lie. In fact, the guy almost lost his job as a result of this. However, it was a weird feeling busting him. On the one hand, I loved the thrill of the takedown. On the other hand, I just felt sorry for him.
96. Egged On
As a teenager, I got busted with a couple of buddies for throwing eggs at cars. We were only actually in the courtroom for our sentencing. There was no trial. The judge called each of us up individually to ask us if we had anything to say. One of my friends tells the judge that he is a good kid who doesn't normally do things like this, which was a lie since we used to do it all the time, and that "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
I wish there was a video of my other friend and I sitting in the benches watching this happen. We simultaneously dropped our heads into our hands because we couldn't believe that idiot just said that. The judge was not pleased, and she took the opportunity to remind him that going to a store, buying eggs, going to another location across town, and then throwing those eggs at cars was not just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
97. A Good Foundation
So, I do a lot of insurance work, and I try cases of all kinds, large and small. I had a small case, over about $2,600, from where a contractor drove into a retaining wall at this lady's house and damaged it. He wouldn't fix it, and, after like eight months, the homeowner allowed her insurance company—my client—to have it fixed and then sent the bill to the contractor.
Surprise surprise, the contractor wouldn't pay. There was lots of squabbling between my client and the contractor's insurance company, who offered less than $500 on a $2,600 bill. We had a trial to settle it. I brought our claims adjuster and the homeowner. The defense attorney brought the contractor and an adjuster from the contractor's insurance company.
Everything goes fine with questioning the homeowner, who was a sweet, middle-aged woman. She, like most people, knows nothing about the finer points of masonry. Then, we get to my claims adjuster. He says, "Well, we paid $2,600 to have this fixed, but I'm not an expert on masonry." However, he also discussed how estimates on masonry were made.
I close my proof. Next, the contractor gets up on the stand. They go over what exactly happened with the retaining wall. Then, he testifies that he "knows for a fact" that the $2,600 invoice includes overhead and profit and accuses my client of "running a scam." The judge strikes the answer. I look down at the estimate for repair and grin from ear to ear.
It says, in bold print, "This amount does not include overhead or profit." I look at the invoice. It's the same amount as the estimate. This guy is lying through his teeth—and I’m going to catch him. On cross examination, I show the contractor the invoice. "Sir, this is a $2,600 invoice for repair, correct." "Yes." Then I show him the estimate.
"Sir, this is a $2,600 estimate for the same repairs, correct?" "Yes." "They're the same amount, correct?" "Yes." "Does the estimate say it does not include profit or overhead?" "Uh..." "Does it?" "Yes." "Didn't you just testify that you knew for a fact that the estimate included overhead?" "I don't know." "What don't you know?"
At this point, the contractor is furious and beats his hand on the stand. "It doesn't include overhead and profit, does it?" "I guess not." "But you said it did, right?" I pass the witness. But I wasn’t done yet. Next, the defense attorney calls the contractor's insurance company's adjuster. He testifies about how much he thought it should cost, like $500.00.
I cross-examine him. "How did you make this estimate?" "I put the numbers into a computer program." "How do you know what numbers to put in?" "Uh..." "Are you a contractor?" "No." "Are you an expert in masonry?" "No." "Have you ever worked in construction?" "No." "And the computer programs spits out what you put in?" "Yes."
"And you can just put in whatever numbers you want?" "Yes." "And it makes an estimate based on the numbers you pick?" "Yes." "But you don't know anything about masonry?" "No." The adjuster just testified that he made up the estimate. Defense closes proof. And the judge takes the matter under advisement. So let’s recap all this glory.
The contractor lied and was discredited, and the adjuster for the contractor admitted he just made everything up. We got $1,000 out of the trial. Less than half of what we sought but double what the defendant argued it should be. It was a win in my book.
Unsplash
98. Don't Let Sleeping Babes Lie
I worked daycare and was told to never accept babies sleeping in car seats or sleeping children at all. So if Mom or Dad brought a kid asleep, I immediately woke them up and pulled them out of their car seat. This made so many parents displeased with me but it's policy. I used to think it was to help the kid be on a schedule, then one day a grandma brought a baby asleep and he was not waking up at all.
That's the day I learned the chilling reason behind this policy. The kid would just would raise his head, whimper, and go back to sleep. Immediately, my boss called 9-1-1 and grandma was trying to downplay "he had a rough night, he's just tired, etc." I knew this baby, he wouldn't sleep if he thought he was going to miss out, we had music playing and kids loudly singing and dancing. In the chaos, grandma slipped out and at some point, someone called the parents.
Turns out Granny had a history of giving kids stuff to knock them out when she babysat, but this time she did it to a six-month-old and that's why he wouldn't wake up. I think they pumped the kid's stomach and he had a stay at the hospital. Action was taken and the family moved away. To clarify, the policy was put in place because my boss knew abusers have been known to do this.
They'd break the kid's arm, dose them, dump them with the sitter who lets the baby asleep all morning then because the kid was with the sitter all day, it's easy to blame them for the baby's injury. Or worse, the baby isn't even alive anymore and they do this to blame the sitter. So yea, to this day if I'm babysitting, I don't accept sleeping children.
I flat out refuse to watch kids at their home while they're sleeping for the same reason. I've pretty much stopped doing any child care because as much as I love kids, watching parents make bad decisions on purpose when they know better, was killing my soul.
99. Family Values
My mother is a terrible person. And I don’t say that lightly. She has stolen medication from me after I had oral surgery. On two occasions (a decade apart from each other), she stole my identity and my siblings, opened several fraudulent credit card accounts in our names, maxed them out (tens of thousands of dollars), and never made a single payment.
She tells people that she’s a nurse when she barely even finished high school. She also often makes up extravagant and potentially damaging lies, all of which she believes she’ll never be caught for. Yes, she’s a terrible person, but my dad isn’t—so when my now-adult daughter was an adolescent, my mother was allowed to spend time with her.
A few years ago, I’d lost my job, was having trouble finding employment, and had to trade in my sports car for a sedan so that I could drive rideshare to make ends meet. My mother told my daughter and several relatives that my car had been repossessed for nonpayment. It was upsetting, but I knew just what I had to do to put her in her place.
I took great satisfaction in clearing by name by showing the dealership papers to my daughter, my relatives, and yes, the shrewish, lying old jerk herself as well. The aftermath was both hilarious and sad, as she tends to have a vile temper.
100. The Bald Truth
I work as a nurse in the ER. A woman with a shaved head came in telling us she had leukemia and was in serious pain. She kept saying that she needed painkillers. There was one enormous problem. There were no records indicating she even had cancer, and when we did a complete blood count it showed that she was in fact healthy. After that, we discharged her and notified local law enforcement.
101. Calling It In
When I was working as a public defender, I once had an incredibly looney client. On the night before his trial, this looney client decided to call up his victim from the jail phone. He repeatedly referenced what he had done to her in an attempt to intimidate her. When I was trying to tell him how stupid this was to have done, he gave me the stupidest excuse. He deserved to get locked up after that.
He claimed that he didn’t want to make that call, but he had been watching a movie on the cell block communal TV and someone changed the channel, which apparently drove him out of his senses and made him lose control of his actions. Sounds perfectly believable and legit, right? That idiot is now doing 28 years behind bars…
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