What's the most ridiculous of astonishing lie you've ever heard?

[SingleSidedShoulderShrug]

Just genuinely interested! Mine is that a colleague of mine told us her dad had died. So good she go home early? Of course we said he's who wouldn't say yes to that.. shame she didn't tell her dad he was meant to be dead or that she'd left early to grieve him as he picked her up as usual. Came in to ask where she was... we were like umm.. she's grieving you ? 😱

My best friend as a teen was a compulsive liar.

It was never ending and most of the lies were so unbelievable,
she claimed to have lots of friends none of us had ever met, claimed she had a job that she never seemed to go to and claimed to have an older brother type figure who worked for a music promotion company who could get her tickets to anything, introduce her to anyone and give her the phone numbers of celebs.
She would constantly make wild claims and offers of elaborate days out or gifts but obviously they would never materialise.

The problem was if you called her out on her lies she would either just cover it up with more lies of laugh and say something like “well obviously I was kidding” and then tell another lie to distract away from it.

It got to the point where at 20 she had a complete fantasy life, imaginary boyfriend, planning a fake wedding, imaginary friends, an imaginary job, she was often too busy with fake things from her made up life to hang out.
But I know for a fact she spent almost all of her time at home hiding in her bedroom watching tv alone because my sister was close friends with her sister.

It all came to a head when she missed a major event in my life because she had some ‘emergency’ in her fantasy life to deal with (her sister told me is was all lies)
she promised an explanation but she just avoided me for weeks, when I confronted her about it she lied again and I called her out on it and she ran off and blocked all contact....I never heard from her again despite trying to reach out for well over a year.
It’s been many years now and I never heard from her again.

The reason I put up with it for so long is she was genuinely a fantastic friend despite the lying, she was a great listener, would do anything for anyone and was so much fun.
I think the lying was just because she was so desperate to fit in and have something to talk about and be seen as cool or exciting.
I wish she could have seen she didn’t need it, she was great just being herself.

Our sisters are still friends and I hear she is now married with a child, I hope she was able to overcome the lying and is really happy.

Mine isn’t as dramatic...by far...as most of these. I’m in fact pretty gobsmacked that so many liars are walking the streets. Idiot liars at that!

In our early 20’s, living at home. My stepsister purloined a lovely big bunch of flowers that had arrived for me, from my boyfriend. She stuck by her story that they were sent to her by her boyfriend (invented) even in the face of masses of indisputable evidence:

There was a card, written in my boyfriend’s hand, and signed. He came over with the receipt, which matched the florist branding, the value and the delivery time. My name was on the tiny envelope. They were my favourite (unusual) flowers. It was the day of my last exams for my degree.

It was so surreal, as she stood there with arms crossed, lies pouring casually from her mouth. It was amazing how far she went without flinching.There comes a time with liars of this level, where you just stop and back away slowly.

I was so hurt when I found out a lie as a child told to me by one if my friends. She came out to play one day with a diamante brooch. Apparently George Michael himself had given it to her..she could prove it as it was in the video for 'last Christmas'. When i watched the video a few days later it became very obvious to me that she lied. I must have been very hurt as when the film 'last christmas' came out i was eagle eyed enough to spot a so called 'Easter egg' in the film. Michelle Yeoh was wearing an exact replica of the real brooch from the music video in the film!

I had a boss that lied a lot too. It was frustrating really as you don't have the power to call them out on it.

@MargeSimpsonswig we had to listen to the manager taking the call about the handcream incident.

“You can’t open the door AT ALL?? Really? What kind of door handle is it? Oh, right, yes well a round one would be difficult. And you can’t just, you know, wipe your hands on your clothes to get rid of it? I see. Yes, well, that would be tricky, although bare skin would absorb the excess perhaps. The cushions on the sofa instead maybe? Ah, right, yes velour would stain. Can you maybe ring someone to come over and let you out? No one at all available? No, no, of course you couldn’t climb out of the window, not with no clothes on, yes, yes, I can quite see that you’ve thoroughly thought through every possible escape plan, it seems you’re quite stuck. So how late do you think you’ll be? Pardon? All day? How much did you put on?.......”

I had to excuse myself at that point. Coming so soon after the diabetic leg I couldn’t take it. My eyes were streaming and the manager was shooting daggers at me. She was let go not long after for persistent absence. Funny, that 🤔.

Some of these are just .... but a good read.

A couple of years back I had to attend a two day training course that required a valid health certificate from Occupational Health. The night before our 16 week old puppy managed to drag said certificate out of my work bag and rip it to pieces.

So I went along to said course with my “the dog ate my homework” amusing story. Fortunately I had the foresight to take the said pieces with a few tiny teeth marks with me and a photo on my phone of the culprit. It did give the trainers a bloody good laugh (oh and I managed to get a copy emailed over so all was well)

A colleague had a hysterectomy... took time off of course...last I heard she had 1 child and was pregnant again

twoshedsjackson, it made me wonder if the boy went to see the replica Viking ship at Pegwell Bay.

I had an ex who told me he had been in prison for 6 months. He hadn't been.

In my early 20’s I worked in a nursery. Made a good friend in the department, used to go out for drinks etc with her. Told her when I was having abnormal smears and about theee weeks after the second she confessed she had cervical cancer and needed a hysterectomy. Floods of tears plus I was even more scared. She’d had the lletz done and told me it was agony. I got it and it wasn’t that bad so counted myself lucky.

A few months later my bio df dies of a brain aneurysm. Hers dies of same about 2 weeks and she’s in absolute bits. I’m ok because I hadn’t seen mine for a decade because he fucked off abroad so I’m comforting her by text as she’s on compassionate leave. Work call her house one day to see how she’s doing and to ask if she knows when she’ll be back. Her dad answers.

Confirms she never had cancer, no hysterectomy and he’s very much alive. She never came back to work, blocked my phone number and my boss broke the news to me. She got in touch on fb maybe 2 years ago asking how I was and friend requested me. Took great pleasure in telling her to fuck off

'The friendship's the most important thing.'

A customer who claimed he’d been walking down the road, was kidnapped by three guys in a passing car who forced him to give them £500 quid from his bank account and he wanted the bank to refund him. Was investigated and found out to be all lies. He’d spent it on gambling and wanted more to spend on gambling. Customers are always accusing banks of treating them like criminals and not believing everything they say but you wouldn’t believe the amount of lies people will tell to get money they’re not entitled to. It’s a shame for genuine customers who get scammed.

Shocked that so many people li about their parents dying!

A colleague who told us his dad had died. Unfortunately for him, he had used that lie in his previous job and another colleague knew that. The liar wasn't even embarrassed when his father came in and even less embarrassed by his father announcing his son was the manager, when he worked very part time. However, worse was still to come as the following year he announced his teenaged son had died. A couple of weeks later, the son rocks up to the shop...

I never knew how he wasn't dismissed. He went off long-term sick as he was 'being picked on' and eventually was spotted doing a different job elsewhere. Turns out he had form for doing that, too.

I worked with a girl who lied about being pregnant and then miscarrying. She took loads of time off at first because it was a high risk pregnancy due to health issues she had, and then even more when she miscarried. When she came back, she suggested joining us for our usual Friday night drinks-that raised a few eyebrows, but nobody said anything. Later in the evening she told me that the fetus had been diagnosed with Downs Syndrome, and cerebral palsy and her body "just knew that it would be too hard for her to have a retard child" so she miscarried. I had to walk away from her because I was so angry at her bullshit story. She told various versions of this story to people and when questions started to be asked, she handed her notice in, telling one person that she found out she hadn't miscarried. Instead, she was actually pregnant with triplets and "the scanner in the hospital got it all wrong!"

Her boyfriend popped by the store a few months later to say hi, and was very confused when I asked how her pregnancy was going!

Having recently lost both of my parents should I be wondering if I could have done it all earlier too ? Bloody hell !

A girl in school told everyone she had cancer. Absolute lies. It was doubly horrific, another girl’s mum had recently died of breast cancer (went to her lungs eventually). She was made to apologise to the other students but couldn’t explain why she’d done it. Really weird, a high achieving well-liked girl. Just odd.

A colleague used to have to better every story anyone else told, so you’d say you jumped off a ten foot shed roof, twisted your ankle as a kid. She would have jumped from the roof of the house and broken her leg with the bone sticking out, despite no scars on the relevant leg. So weird. We were teachers, all seemingly normal, I have no idea why she did this, she was already cool, popular, kids loved her.

There's quite a few people lying about dead family members today ...

Something in the water?!

The dog ate my homework is a well known lie as we know (excepting Teedeepee's true story of course) but another old one which is probably never used now is "the budgie escaped" and this was indeed a true one in my home one fateful morning. Still living with parents as I was only aged 19 or 20.

Strict instructions from mother to not open any doors or windows when the little bird was flapping around the room for his daily excercise. It was a hot summer morning and not realising the bird was out of his cage I had opened the front door and went back into the house to get my work things and bag. My terrible mistake was opening the living room door too and it only took approx 30 seconds before I heard the whoosh sound of his wings.

He was gone. Mother appeared from the kitchen and I had to break the news to her. She was distraught. I wasn't too happy either and had to stay to console her. It was way before mobile phones had been thought of and we didn't have a house phone (yes those were the days!) so I got to work 30 minutes late. My boss did not believe me when I told him why and he was grumpy with me all day.

Such a sad story. His name was Bootsy. The budgie, not my boss. No one seems to have budgie cages in their living rooms these days.

I had a friend about 10 years ago who said she and a man she knew (who didn’t exist) had been interviewed on the tv and that mid-interview, he stood up and declared his undying love for her.
I asked where I could see the interview () and she said they’d burned the tape

Best one I ever heard was one on Mumsnet - someone knew a girl who (while they were still at school) said she invented the "woop woop" thing people do in nightclubs 😂

Plastic Replacement Uterus is my favourite Talking Heads album.

I had a coworker who I suspect was a pathological liar. Think Jay from inbetweeners style. Some of them were so ridiculous that they sound like I am making them up, but the best one was that they he applied to join the army and the army rejected him because he did so well at the fitness test they told him to go and become a professional athlete instead... no explanation as to why he was now in a minimum wage job.

His excuses for phoning in sick were gold. Never a cold, always a weird diagnosis that he probably googled to sound impressive.

My old housemate was just pipped to the post for being Harry Potter by Daniel Ratcliffe. Apparently it was really embarrassing for him as he told everyone at his school and got called up to be congratulated during assembly. The funniest thing is apparently he lost out due to votes on Blue Peter.

I mean, I’m sure universal made blue Peter run a competition before doing any screen tests aye? And there’s no trace of a competition on google.

He also used to always have threesomes every weekend. We lived in the same house - he never pulled one girl let alone two at the same time.

Oh, same colleague as above lost about 7 or 8 grandparents in the few years he was in our company.
Sad thing was, he was actually very competent and hard working and a nice person, but most of what came out of his mouth was bullshit!

I've known a few people who were compulsive liars like that, I see it as a kind of... a bit like tourette's maybe, in some ways?
Like an impulse that very hard to control?