There are many reasons someone would be lying on the phone to you. Getting out of going to that sappy romance comedy you want to see by telling you that his grandmother is ill and needs his help or creating a false “static” sound on the phone as you talk to her are two ways that people routinely lie on the phone. There are many others, and some of them include delay answers to your questions, confusing speech patterns and defensive behaviors. Although detecting a liar over the phone may not be as easy as in person, there are many clues that give away a liar, each and every time.
- Listen for the patterns in their speech. Although you don’t have the advantage of face to face contact and body language to base their behavior off of, listening to their pattern of speech can be very revealing. Listen closely to how they talk. Is their speech erratic sounding? Do they repeat what they’ve already said to cover up something else? Do they pause for a second or two before answering you? Many liars if confronted with a potential lie they told or if they are about to lie, need a second to gather together their facts.
- Do they often try to change the subject? If a liar thinks you may be ‘on to them’, they will routinely change the subject. Feeling backed in a corner, they may even end the call. If you want to decipher whether they are lying, ask them some routine questions and in demining if their answers line up and are consistent and see if they take action to change the subject. Many times a liar will do anything to avoid the topic or change topics manically if you keep bringing the conversation back to the topic they want to avoid.
- Liars often get defensive. Getting defensive is a common tactic for liars. It helps them avoid answering your questions and turn the blame around on you, not them. By getting angry or emotional, it helps the accused liar diffuse the topic and an effective way to get them “off the hook.” Sometimes this method of behavior will end up having the other person apologize and this diversion is just what the liar was hoping for. When talking to someone you think may be lying, make sure to stay at ease and calmly keep the conversation going.
- A liar will often create confusion in their comments. When searching for clues, talking to a liar over the phone requires a bit more creativity. Since you’re not talking to the person directly face to face, you aren’t able to rely on their body language for a clue. Instead, you can listen to their speech patterns. Do they repeat information several times? Do they go back and forth with their answers, giving inconsistent comments to the questions you asked? Under pressure a liar may crack, so if you keep asking her about “what happened when….” and the answers she gives are inconsistent from the last time she answered them, she now has less room to hide from the truth.
- Do they find a way to abruptly get off the phone? There’s nothing like the classic approach of getting off the phone. If you keep a liar on the phone long enough, they will eventually want to hide from her own lies. If they don’t redirect the conversation to another topic, a liar will classically tell you they have to go, or find any other excuse to leave. As a listener, try to keep them on the phone by offering conversation of another topic and before hanging up, you can readdress your question. See if you get a consistent answer from the last time they answered it. Do the lies match up or are they conflicting?
It’s never a pleasant thing to accuse someone of not being truthful. On the other hand, it may be better to dig into the issue at hand and get down to the truth before it gets worse. For some people, lying is a habit, and for others it’s their one time or on occasion way of escaping a mistake they made and trying to get out of it the easy way. As you try to decipher whether someone is lying to you over the phone or not, listen closely to their patterns of speech, their reckless defensive nature and how they talk to you. Stay calm and allow them to reveal the truth on their own.
