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84 Deception at Work

Liars are more evasive than honest people

Finding out what you know

The liar may also ask questions (‘fishing questions’) to find out how much you know and
what action you plan to take. This, again, is much like a game of poker and you must control
any disclosure. If you say too much (perhaps through the questions you ask) the liar is able to
plan future answers and actions, interfere with witnesses or destroy evidence. For this reason,
the fact that you have suspicions should be treated in confidence, especially when fraud is
suspected. It is critical that the suspect is ambushed.

Minimizing the penalties

Where a suspect’s guilt is overwhelming, he may try to minimize his punishment by provid-
ing a plausible excuse, the most common being that he is suffering from a terminal illness or
has a personal crisis of some sort, the common theme being that people should take pity on
him.

Excuses are the manifestation of the ‘flight’ or ‘belly up’ decision by animals who know
they have lost the fight. Experience shows that many excuses are totally false but even so,
people seem to accept them. Even the highest courts in the land fall for sob stories without
verifying them and thus allow villains to walk away laughing.

Thus the rule is that if at any time an excuse is presented, consider it to be no more than
an achievement lie and deal with it accordingly.

GOD’S LITTLE MIRACLE peace, and any idea of prosecuting him
was abandoned. In fact he was given
Tommy Taylor stole £100,000 from ABC time (something of an irony under the
Ltd and admitted his sins to his manager. If circumstances) to repay.
anyone was facing a term of imprisonment,
Tommy was; until God intervened. The day A few months later, Tommy appeared on
after making his admissions, Tommy and a national television quiz show and was a
his crying wife saw the head of personnel picture of health. God had intervened with a
and explained that he had a terminal illness miraculous cure and, six years later, Tommy
and was unlikely to live for more than a few is still alive and well and probably still
months. A letter from his doctor – backed cherishing the letter, supposedly from his
up by very bleak test results – confirmed the doctor, and test results which his wife had
tragic news. dutifully forged on her laptop computer.

Human resources recommended that
Tommy be allowed to resign and die in

Never accept an excuse without verifying it

Frustrating follow-up action by further attacks

It is not unusual for people who have confessed to change their minds and make complaints of
unfair treatment or to threaten blackmail. Such allegations, which can be days or even months
later, can be successfully defended if the interview has been properly conducted and recorded.

Always expect a counter-attack and never give in to blackmail