Fraud Triangle
6.6 Indications of Deception
In spite of the evidence against you, by maintaining your innocence you give up three very valuable things. They include (1) the opportunity to offer any mitigating circumstances that might help understand your action and, in turn, potentially reduce the punishment; (2) the opportunity to ask for a second chance; and most importantly (3) the opportunity to say you are sorry. Most troubling to management is your failure to say you are sorry.
Then the question:
If you were a decision maker, in this instance, who would you forgive— the person who admitted he had made a mistake and said he was sorry, or the person who hid behind a lie?
An answer of “I don’t know” is a tacit admission of guilt, and the interviewee should be told so. If the subject answers correctly and says, “The person who told the truth,” the interviewer should ask: “Then, why haven’t you told the truth?” For some employers that may be too close to offering leniency in exchange for an admission.
Some employers may even think it is patently coercive. However, I think the approach and question is legitimate. It contemplates human nature’s distinction between right and wrong and our compulsion to say we are sorry when we have indeed made a mistake. To blunt the assertion that the question is coercive, the interviewer should make it clear that he is not offering leniency in exchange for an admission. Instead, the interviewer should tell the interviewee that all he is seeking is the truth.
Another common way self-references are reduced is for the subject to substitute the pronoun “you” with “I.”
Question: “Can you tell me how purchase orders are approved?”
Answer: “You know, you try to look at the requisition, approval signatures, but sometimes when you’re really in a hurry, you just approve them.”
Deceptive interviewees sometimes omit all self-referencing pronouns and tor-ture themselves and the English language to do so. Consider this statement by a suspected embezzler: “So, at work early, no one is in yet. A little coffee, some paperwork and BANG, there it is, the safe is wide open. Who knew? You gotta think there is a problem. You know, people just don’t leave safes open at night.
Hey, you don’t think you know who had something to do with it, do you?” Notice first the absence of “I” and the lack of general specificity. The hour of the morning is not mentioned, the type of paperwork performed is not mentioned, yet he says,
“People just don’t leave safes open at night,” when, in fact, it is discovered open in the morning. The astute interviewer would ask how did he know the safe was left open at night?
6.6.2 Verb Tense
Truthful people typically describe historical events in the past tense. Deceptive peo-ple sometimes refer to past events as if the events were occurring in the present (like the example above). Describing past events using the present tense suggests that people are rehearsing the events in their mind. Skilled investigative interviewers pay particular attention to points in a narrative when the speaker shifts tense inap-propriately. Consider the following statement made by a supervisor claiming that a pouch containing $5,000 in cash was stolen before he could deliver it to a drop box.
After closing, I put the pouch in my truck and drove to the First Bank branch on State Street. At the bank you enter the parking lot and drive around back to the drop box. When I get to the back and park, this guy jumps out and comes toward me. He has a gun, see, and grabs the pouch just like that. In seconds he is gone. I wasn’t scared but I called the police anyway. On the way home, I called my boss and told him what hap-pened” (emphasis added for the reader’s benefit).
Notice the mixed use of past and present tense. At the moment the crime alleg-edly occurs, the interviewee switches from past tense to present tense. This likely occurs because this portion of the story is false. Also note the additional suspicious failure to self-reference in: “… you enter the parking lot and drive around back.”
6.6.3 Answering Questions with a Question
For some of the reasons mentioned earlier, even liars prefer not to lie. Outright lies carry the risk of detection. Before answering a question with a lie, a deceptive person usually will try to avoid answering the question with a question of his own.
Often these questions contain a veiled threat or an accusation of their own. Here are a couple of examples:
◾ “You really think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
◾ “Are you crazy, that’s against the law?”
◾ “If you knew you would get fired, why would somebody do that?”
◾ “You better not be calling me a liar.”
These responses are intended to both deceive and intimidate the interviewer.
Also notice that the responses reveal a pseudo-pride. A pride that is fabricated and based on the assertion that being called a liar is an insult of intolerable proportion.
It is phony and the technique is obvious.
6.6.4 Equivocation
Using this technique, the subject avoids the interviewer’s questions by filling his or her responses with expressions of uncertainty, confusion, and vagueness. The inter-viewee includes words such as: think, guess, sort of, maybe, might, approximately, about, or perhaps in their response. This vagueness is an attempt to create the appear-ance of lack of memory while seeming agreeable. If boxed in, it allows the interviewee to later modify or alter their assertion as more evidence against them is revealed.
Using equivocating (noncommittal) verbs and adverbs such as: think, believe, guess, suppose, figure, assume, almost, and mainly are indicators of deception.
6.6.5 Oaths
The most classic deception is the use of oaths. Oaths are used to reinforce a state-ment of guiltlessness. Users of this technique want the interviewer to believe they are innocent and what they say is true. Deceptive subjects often use oaths to try to make their statements sound more convincing. Lacking their own credibility, they attempt to use that of others, such as parents, God, or any higher power. Users of this technique say things like: “I swear to God,” “God is my witness,” “On my chil-dren’s grave,” or “I cross my heart.” Truthful individuals are more confident that the facts will prove the veracity of their assertions of innocence and feel less need to fortify their statements with oaths.