Why the need to lie just to...lie?

[fcgamer | 4,723]

I was talking to @OptOut tonight about a local reseller that we both know. The guy has uncovered a lot of great stuff over the years, but his prices are always a bit high, initially anyways, but whatever. Tonight though I made a discovery though, I'll detail it below.

Last week the guy sent me some pictures of some games, and asked which I wanted to buy, if any. So I marked several, asked him for a price, then he went AWOL for about fifteen minutes, before coming back with a price, and also telling me that two of the games I requested were now not available. I inquired as to why, he stated that his girlfriend and a kid relative both wanted to play those games, okay sure, I don't believe it as those were the two most valuable carts in the bunch, but whatever. So we went back and forth on the other carts, he wouldn't budge on those two, then I decided not to buy anything just out of protest.

So tonight I was viewing the IG of one of my local collecting buddies over here, oddly enough he just happened to get these exact same two carts last week, same colour shell (yeah on bootleg Famicom Games there is a wide array of colours), same condition, even the labels are all misaligned at the same exact positions. So maybe it's a coincidence, but considering that these are quite hard games to find, and the fact that my friend also knows the reseller, it just is too large of a coincidence for me to believe that they aren't the same cartridges that I was denied earlier.

So tonight I called the reseller out on it, he initially said that the kid took the cart away, then claimed he would have sold it to me if I didn't ignore his messages, then claimed he still had it yet it wasn't for sale, all the while a little bit upset that I had called him out on the matter - I guess he realised I'm not as stupid as he thinks .

My question though is I don't understand the need to lie about the whole situation at all. Maybe he lies tonight because he was afraid I'd be pissed off , but initially? A simple "Sorry, I was unsure as to value so I asked another collector about prices, then he said he wanted those two carts so I will sell them to him, as he and I are actually friends, not just clients" would have sufficed, and although I wouldn't have been happy, I definitely would be understanding. But just lying about the whole thing from the start , I see nothing positive gained from it, and it makes me want to take all further business elsewhere, no matter what good stuff he turns up.

 

[Deadeye | 1,596]

It would have been better if he just said, sorry already sold as I sent this list out to several people.  No harm in that, unless you had some agreement to first rights or something.  That situation happens to me, not the lying, but sold before we settle on a price.  Nothing wrong with that part.

[Scrobins | 1,725]

Some people will just contort themselves into pretzels before admitting they behaved poorly. Sorry that happened to you.

[Startyde | 175]

Some people are just damaged. There's no other way to describe.

 

Not to make this about me, but I still think of this one person back in the day, who was so dead to rights lying but no matter what I did to give them an out, they wouldn't take it.

They wanted to trade one of my VGA games for one of theirs. The problem is, the game he claimed to have didnt exist (per VGA). 

He says he did have it, and that he would take pics of it. Then that night, his friend "got mad" that he would sell it and "took the game back" so he couldnt take pics.

Then it spiraled into more madness where he said he couldnt talk to the friend because even though they worked together, they were on separate floors, but I looked up the address out of boredom and it was a single story small building.

The entire time I was like "Look, we both know it doest exist, VGA says it doesnt, you cant give pics etc, just say you were lying and I'll forgive you. I wont even tell anyone, just stop with the story."

And you know what, HE WOULDNT, haha. The last words he wrote to me years ago that was he has it and I was cruel for not believing him. He then disappeared off the internet forever.

Some people just cannot admit they did something wrong, and will die by any story to try and redeem some sense of dignity, completely unaware that theyve long since spent it. 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Startyde

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

Some people only care about how they appear as a person instead of the actual type of person they are.

I've discovered a person was scum without them knowing and then had their resume come across my desk to be hired. It immediately went into the trash and they still have no idea why they didn't get that job.

People need to be more concerned with being a good person instead of appearing to be a good person.

[Deadeye | 1,596]

The sequence of events and the lying, sucks.  Sorry that happened, especially between friends.  As far as how I think they should have handled it, assuming they did in fact send the list out to multiple people, just be truthful as I described earlier.

[Splain | 2,566]

I can name 3 or 4 people that I've met over the years that just... lie all the time. I don't know if it went far enough to call them "pathological liars" but they sure did lie a lot. Imagine Dwight from The Office. They all bragged about being good at various athletic endeavors, winning various awards, being noticed and approached by various big names for endorsements or jobs, tales of always being in the right place at the right time. And martial arts. For some reason they all lied about being very advanced in some form of martial art, complete with stories about when they broke some guy's wrist and saved the day.

I can't say for 100% certain which things were lies and which weren't, but there's no way my ~250 pound co-worker with a very boring desk job won a surfing competition in Hawaii "a couple years ago." There's no way my poor-as-dirt roommate has visited 100 countries. Etc. My guess is that they get in the habit of exaggerating stuff, then they sort of ride the high of seeing how impressed people are. Then once the falsehoods are out, they have to keep them up FOREVER. Who wants to admit that they lied about that kind of thing 4 years ago and they're actually just an ordinary guy?

I've straight-up caught those guys telling the same story 2 different ways, but they just insist that I remembered wrong, or even that they misspoke the first time. The version they just told is the correct one. I try to be an easy-going guy, but I have no patience for that kind of person at all. I just can't talk to them, knowing they're just making everything up to make themselves look good.

"You have a pilot's license? I'd love to see it!" "oh, uhhh..."
"You were in a commercial? I'd love to see it!" "oh, uhhh..."
"You won a medal in a Krav Maga competition?? Can I see it?" "oh, uhhh..."

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

2 hours ago, Splain said:

And martial arts. For some reason they all lied about being very advanced in some form of martial art, complete with stories about when they broke some guy's wrist and saved the day.

Tend to see that a lot for some reason.   Just because you go to a weekly TKD class doesn't mean you can wipe out half the earth.

Saw all kinds of liars in the bar business.   They ranged from just general small bullshit to attempt to impress the ladies to full blown lifestyle commitment lies.   The best is when they tell you they know the owner and they have no idea he/she is sitting two barstools away.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

@captmorgandrinker What sort of lifestyle commitment lies?

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

11 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

@captmorgandrinker What sort of lifestyle commitment lies?

Career stuff.  People claimed to be higher ups where they worked instead of worker bees, things like that.

Lies I would assume they had to keep on with in other aspects of their life, not just while they were at the bar.

EDIT TO ADD- The worst one was the guy that claimed he knew how to ride a motorcycle, then sent our owner's crotch rocket flying about 100 feet across the parking lot on its side.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

22 minutes ago, captmorgandrinker said:

 The best is when they tell you they know the owner and they have no idea he/she is sitting two barstools away.

I used to LOVE this when someone would come to my job years ago and tell me that they wanted a discount/free stuff/special treatment because they were friends with the manager. Problem for them, I WAS THE MANAGER! It's stuff like that, that makes me almost miss that job, almost.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

13 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

I used to LOVE this when someone would come to my job years ago and tell me that they wanted a discount/free stuff/special treatment because they were friends with the manager. Problem for them, I WAS THE MANAGER! It's stuff like that, that makes me almost miss that job, almost.

Yep.  If you're really friends with the manager/owner/whoever, you'll be sitting with them and the owner will wave the bartender over for the freebie stuff.

I get discounts and cool stuff at a few places where I'm a regular, but I would never insist upon it if I didn't get them from whoever is ringing me up.

[KokiriChild | 1,644]

6 hours ago, captmorgandrinker said:

Yep.  If you're really friends with the manager/owner/whoever, you'll be sitting with them and the owner will wave the bartender over for the freebie stuff.

I get discounts and cool stuff at a few places where I'm a regular, but I would never insist upon it if I didn't get them from whoever is ringing me up.

Best friends growing up owned a family pizza shop. It was incredible, because it was still, to this day, easily the best pizza I have ever eaten in my life. (God, how do I miss it!)

Whenever we were with them we could order literally whatever we wanted and never paid a dime. We would order boxes of mozerella sticks, multiple pizzas, energy drinks, you name it. We were middle schoolers after all

Anytime my family went to the pizza place without them, we always paid in full and never expected otherwise. If you're really friends with the owner, and not just friends with them for the perks, you won't mind supporting the business.

Edited October 16, 2020 by KokiriChild

[drxandy | 3,225]

It's not lying just to lie, the guy is using you to learn what's valuable and you are giving him everything he needs to sell to someone else at top dollar. 

You told him the valuable ones, he goes and looks em up and then uses that price to negotiate with someone else. 

Time to write this prick off and ice him out, no matter what kind of good stuff he has.

[Deadeye | 1,596]

39 minutes ago, drxandy said:

It's not lying just to lie, the guy is using you to learn what's valuable and you are giving him everything he needs to sell to someone else at top dollar. 

I didn't consider that may be what is happening.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

1 hour ago, drxandy said:

It's not lying just to lie, the guy is using you to learn what's valuable and you are giving him everything he needs to sell to someone else at top dollar. 

You told him the valuable ones, he goes and looks em up and then uses that price to negotiate with someone else. 

Time to write this prick off and ice him out, no matter what kind of good stuff he has.

Well every time I pick something out to buy from him, I always select a bunch of decoys too. In this particular situation, there were about five carts I was interested in, and then 12 others that I selected as well. 

In other situations, Ive also asked him very obscure questions about the items, sometimes things I'm actually interested in, other times things along the lines of a purple Gannon situation. I can see he really freaks out and hates it when I do that, he feels as though I know something that he is missing, and if course he should, as he just resells and has no interest in the games.

But yes I agree, it's long overdue to ice him out.

Edit: The funniest part though is that he made a large mistake making me feel this way, as I'm a westerner in Taiwan. While I'm not rich (yet...), I earn a decent salary compared to a large portion of the population, and on top of that, I'm still somewhat in the mindset that $10 is a decent price for a game, whereas the locals might feel $5 is better and then try to haggle it down. This comes from different circumstances and s different world view, so he's shot himself in the foot somewhat, as ultimately he will just be stuck haggling with cheap-asses over the stuff.

Edited October 16, 2020 by fcgamer