Are you wondering if someone is lying to you? And you don’t know how to find out if they are?

Many people write me all the time saying that they suspect someone is lying to them, and ask me for advice. Without being there to watch a person’s behavior, and with many people unsure of their own ability to judge behavior accurately, there is one thing anyone can do to spot a lie.

What is it you ask?

Fact check, plain and simple. Simply checking facts can be quite revealing.  Liars are not usually good at keeping facts straight, and often leak clues to their deception, if you pay attention.  The problem is most people overlook the leaks and discount them.

Last week, a woman wrote to me and said a friend had told her she had twins, but she never, ever saw them and she never talked about them around other people. She was suspicious and with good reason, and she was listening to her gut instincts.

What I advised her to do was go on her friend’s Facebook page and post a question like, “I’d love to see a photo of your beautiful twins. How about a picture? I bet they look just like you!”

An honest person would be happy to respond to that request, even if they do it privately, but a dishonest person would get defensive, and more than likely delete the request because they don’t want other people seeing their falsehoods.

What happened upon investigating this is that the woman who wrote me found that her friend wouldn’t let her friends post on her Facebook page. That immediately sends up alarms. Either the person is very insecure, or they are hiding something.  Now you have two red flags in a short period of time:  not ever seeing or meeting the “twins,” and now limitations in the flow of information.

So the woman wrote her privately asking to see photos of the twins and guess what? She was chewed out and blocked.  Blocked.  What mom of twins would act so outrageously?  The questioner found out that it is likely her friend was being deceptive because she had no reason to go off like that on a simple request. That is three hot spots in a short period of time.

Fact finding can be as simple as asking the right questions or it can be more complex of keeping track of dates and times to see if there are discrepancies, or digging around to see if there is supportive evidence.  I believe you need three solid hot spots before you decide someone is being untrustworthy, at the very minimum.  In this case, these behaviors are all suspicious.

Most people who tell lies, even white lies, often forget to remember the details of their story and to most people’s surprise they drop factual clues that tell what the truth is more frequently than most people realize.  But even if they don’t, you can look around a little, and ask questions and you should get a clearer picture. It’s one way most people can uncover a liar in little time. It’s much easier than people think.