our coworker lied about having a sick child and a rich fiance

by Alison Green on October 7, 2024

I’m off for a few days (probably back tomorrow), so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2017.

A reader writes:

I’m really curious about what you would have done in this situation.

I’ve worked for a company for a little over 10 years and there is a person, who we will call Lysa, who started soon after me. We worked in a semi-small and close department (20 people or so) and about a year after she started she ran into a streak of bad luck. Her husband asked for a divorce and it was discovered her young daughter had cancer. The children’s hospital was an almost two-hour drive, so she was in the car a lot. She was tired and we, as a department, came together to do what we could to help. People would bring her lunch and coffee and everyone pooled money and bought her a gas card.

Her luck started to improve with her daughter’s health improving, and she met a new boyfriend. She was always gushing about him, showing everyone pictures and having loud phone conversations. It was annoying, but we gave her slack because she had such a hard last few years. It became worse when he proposed because any conversation with her was about her wedding in Italy and how this weekend she was flying to Italy to check on the wedding venue and next weekend was a trip to New York for the dress fitting. (Her fiance was wealthy so he was paying for everything.)

When the wedding day was closing in, a group of coworkers decided to throw a bridal shower at the office and decided to invite her friends and family as well. So one lunch, they headed to her mother’s house. They invited her to the bridal shower and asked if she would invite any of Lysa’s friends. The mother’s response: “What are you talking about? She doesn’t even have a boyfriend…”

She lied … about all of it. Her daughter was never sick. She was never married. She never met the rich man of her dreams, but she told us that. The long phone conversations were her talking to herself, not connected to anything (we checked the phone log). We believe the flowers and gifts she sent to herself.

When she was confronted, she said her mother doesn’t like him and doesn’t acknowledge his existence. It was the same with the daughter’s illness. She pretended it was real but it didn’t fit. She had already told us that her mother had gone with her to Italy to check out the venue and was excited. And during her daughter’s illness, she talked about how her mother was so helpful and supportive. We started catching her in little lies.

We reported it to management. Since it didn’t affect the business, they said there wasn’t anything they could do, but now we have a department with an outcast. The only people who will talk to her are those who like to stir up trouble. Even management doesn’t believe her. When her daughter was in an accident, they asked her to bring in the police report (the difference between taking care of a child or an unexcused absence) when before they would have just believed it. It hasn’t reached an unprofessional level. Even those who won’t even say hello will work with her on work-related items, but it’s curt and cold and they turn their backs when its done.

What is your opinion of what should be done?

Well, it’s not quite right that since it doesn’t affect the business, there’s nothing that your management can do. They may decide they don’t want to do anything, and reasonable people could disagree on whether or not they should do something, but they could if they wanted to.

And if the situation is impacting Lysa’s ability to be effective in her job, then it’s work-related anyway.

My first question, though, is how absolutely sure you are that Lysa lied. It’s one thing to suspect her of lying and another to be sure — and when you’re accusing someone of lying about a child with cancer, you really, really don’t want to get it wrong. It sounds like you do have enough info to be confident, but it’s worth taking a hard look at that. (For example, if you’re just going on her mother’s word, it’s possible that her mother is troubled or otherwise not giving you correct info. You shouldn’t necessarily believe the mom over the coworker, unless you have other reasons to consider the coworker not credible.)

If you’re not 100% sure, I’d put this in the “wow, that seems really suspicious, and I’m taking everything she says with a large grain of salt” category. That’s different than the “my coworker is a horrible person and I will shun her” category. It’s more like the “I’m giving her a wide berth and not going out of my way to help if she reports future crises” category.

But if you are sure, then it wouldn’t be unreasonable for Lysa’s manager to intervene. What that would look like could vary, and probably should come down to the type of role that Lysa has, how much she needs to interact with colleagues to get her work done, and what the impact has been on the office as a whole. If she can go on being perfectly effective in her job while having people dislike her, the appropriate consequence might simply be A Serious and Unpleasant Conversation (“your coworkers are upset because they sacrificed their own time and money to help you out when they thought you were in need — what is your plan for repairing those relationships?”). But there are other contexts where you could reasonably argue that it would be too disruptive to keep her around (again, assuming there’s no chance you’re wrong about what happened).

Whatever the resolution, it’s worth noting that while what Lysa did was very wrong, it’s also something that happy, healthy people don’t do. So something’s going on with her — mental illness, deep insecurity, or something else — and keeping that in mind might help if you do have to keep working with her.

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{ 146 comments }

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  1. Witch*

    > When the wedding day was closing in, a group of coworkers decided to throw a bridal shower at the office and decided to invite her friends and family as well. So one lunch, they headed to her mother’s house.

    This is weird. It’s not weird to want to invite personal friends to a work function (although it’s not usual), but it’s VERY WEIRD to go right to her mother’s house and not just ask Lysa directly if she wants to invite someone.

    She lied, maybe, and that’s weird as well. But you all are involved too deeply in each other’s personal businesses. Do your work, be friendly, but go home at the end of the day. Don’t carry this drama around with you.

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      1. WellRed*

        But it’s weird to go as a group to your coworkers mom’s house to invite her. It’s also weird to invite mom and other people outside of work. I know think on the original, many comments were less weird out by this if they lived in small communities.

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        1. Caramel & Cheddar*

          Even in a small community, surely the reverse would be more common, i.e. someone in Lisa’s personal network reaching out to her close coworkers to invite them to the family/friend shower. Obviously that never happened because she wasn’t actually getting married and there was no shower for friends/family to organize, but if it had been true, that’s what I would have expected if they wanted to mix work folks with personal life folks.

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        2. doreen*

          I think the weirdness of the invitation has less to do with the actual size of the community and more to do with the overlap between family/friends/work. For example, even though I don’t live in a small community , I’ve known family members of co-workers at three jobs. Now, in one case it’s because we we friends before I started working there- but at the other two jobs, it was more that when I first started, I worked with Betty. At some point Betty got transferred or retired and at some point her daughter Veronica came to work there. Of course we are going to invite our former coworker to her daughter’s shower. Going to Betty’s house probably wouldn’t happen, just because of the distances involved ( my coworkers might have lived a 2 hour drive away from me) but inviting her by mail or phone call would.

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      2. Fluffy Fish*

        Surprises don’t belong at work.

        They should have asked if it was wanted and should have asked abotu inviting others.

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        1. Agnes A*

          Yes – smth if off. It seems like they’ve already suspected the co-worker is lying and wanted to see the mother’s reaction. Otherwise, they could have just emailed or called her. But in that case, the mom would likely speak to Lysa first to see what’s going on.

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    2. T.N.H*

      This struck me as regional, possibly not US. In other places, it’s still the norm to go to a person’s house like this and would be the equivalent of reaching out by phone or email here.

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      1. ferrina*

        Yeah, this also seemed to me to be deeply specific to this letter. I mean, my coworkers don’t have a clue where my mom lives (they’d be lucky to guess the right time zone). But given how much Lysa was talking about everything, I would not be surprised if Lysa had also given the impression that her mom was supported and might want to be there. Lysa was constructing a very specific narrative, and I suspect this was a natural continuation of that narrative.

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      2. 1-800-BrownCow*

        I see the point of possibly not U.S. as I find it weird as well and I grew up in a small, tight-knit community where I would never think it was okay to show up at my coworker’s mom’s house UNLESS I knew coworker and their family since before working together. Which if that were true, then LW would likely know Lysa well enough to have met the finace and the sick daughter.

        However, based on the letter, I do think this is in the U.S. LW mentions flying to Italy to see the wedding venue and then a trip to NYC for the dress, which feels very U.S. based. I’m not expert, but it seems most Europeans I know travel by train between countries. And “a trip to NYC” sounds like they’re closer to NYC.

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        1. Lady Danbury*

          I’m from a small, non-US community and it’s also weird to me. I’ve been to plenty of office showers, and at most the coworker’s partner will be invited. Definitely not parents or any other external people.

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        2. abca*

          Agreed, the NYC thing made it very much sound US to me too. And I’m not in the US, in a country where people also say that “this habit that looks boundary crossing/creepy/sexist/wrong to you is totally normal there” and I can guarantee you that for all of these “this is totally normal in that culture” there will be many people (women in particular) who do not agree that the thing in question is a totally normal thing.

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        3. T.N.H*

          She clarified in the comments that this was a small town and tight knit department where this was considered the norm.

          Reply ↓
    3. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Honestly, I think unless you have a very small workplace, it’s weird to invite personal friends to a work shower. This place is described as being a “semi-small” department of twenty people or so, which suggestions to me that there are probably multiple departments and many of them are even bigger than this one. Inviting close work friends to a friends and family shower seems more common, in my experience, but if a workplace wants to throw a shower, that’s usually a standalone work-related event independent of any other showers.

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      1. carrot cake*

        You know what else is weird? Committing criminal fraud. Honestly, I don’t understand the focus on the shower invitations and how they came to be. Why does it matter in a context of someone committing criminal fraud?

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          1. Lab Rabbit*

            It is if it’s your intention to scam someone. (That’s literally the definition of crimnal fraud.) Lisa’s intention matters a lot here.

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            2. abca*

              But we don’t know Lisa’s intention, and will never know, so saying that there is a context of criminal fraud is obviously wrong.

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              1. Criminologist*

                she lied and was given money/goods because of it and then continued to lie, so she’s definitely committing criminal fraud (assuming it’s 100% certain that the sick kid was a lie)

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                1. Your credit's fine Mr Torrance*

                  What is the statute of limitations on criminal fraud? The letter was from 2017 but surely we can still undertake an effective prosecution?

            3. Reality.Bites*

              She was given special consideration by the company while dealing with her daughter’s health. People did her work, which means they weren’t doing hers. She was possibly given time off as well.

              A place where I worked had an employee who faked having stomach cancer. It was a pretty large office, and there were a couple of other employees at the time who were both undergoing treatment for other forms of cancer, and their conversations with her seemed off. I don’t know the details of those conversations.

              She was escorted out and told she would have to see the company doctor before being allowed to return to work. She didn’t see the doctor and was terminated.

              The fraud was relatively minimal, mainly time off for non-existent medical appointments, so nothing that ever required any documentation. (Policy at the time was you needed a doctor’s note for absences of more than three days, but there was no actual limit on sick days and there were a fair number of our employees who had at least one or two per month.)

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        2. Caramel & Cheddar*

          In the context of the letter it seems incredibly obvious that Lysa screwed up dramatically, so I don’t know that most of the commentariat would find value in saying “Hey, this was bad” when it was obvious that, hey, this was bad.

          What doesn’t get addressed anywhere in the letter or the response is that the LW’s colleagues also transgressed workplace norms in going to the mom’s house, so it’s worth pointing out. We get lots of letters where people write in and describe a situation where they don’t recognize that they themselves erred as part of the broader picture and it seems perfectly reasonable to point that out. Lysa lied, but are they going to drop in on the parents of their next non-lying coworker who gets married? Hopefully not.

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          1. carrot cake*

            “What doesn’t get addressed anywhere in the letter or the response is that the LW’s colleagues also transgressed workplace norms in going to the mom’s house, so it’s worth pointing out.”
            —

            I guess we will have to agree to disagree, because that transgression, if it were such a thing in this case, is entirely speculative, and still doesn’t excuse criminal fraud.

            Different workplaces in different places/cultures handle things differently. Weird is entirely subjective here. Please focus on what counts: criminal. fraud. That is the known transgression.

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            1. Caramel & Cheddar*

              If you want to focus on the criminal fraud, and it sounds like you do, then I encourage you to write a top-level comment about it instead of replying to everyone else who isn’t talking about it telling them that they should be talking about it.

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            2. Benihana scene stealer*

              Which part of all this is criminal fraud? I’m not a lawyer or police officer or judge so it’s not clear to me. Is it that Lysa took money for the gas card or is there more to it?

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              1. Criminologist*

                Yes, lying to people in order to get money/goods is fraud. It’s not clear how much money/stuff she was given, but it was at least some.

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                1. Benihana scene stealer*

                  Technically i’m sure you’re right – I just think this isn’t really relevant to the situation since clearly nobody’s calling the police (nor should they imo)

            3. Roland*

              > Please focus on what counts: criminal. fraud.

              Yes, whatever will the police do if comments on a years-old workolace advice question don’t focus on this???

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              1. Beany*

                I think the “years-old” doesn’t matter here. We’re treating these as if these are fresh situations, so we shoul pretend it all occurred over the last few months. If there was significant financial gain or loss because of criminal behavior, assume it could be reported and prosecuted.

                Otherwise what’s the point of bringing these old posts back again? We’re not really assuming the original LW will even see it this time around, much less take action on the second round of advice.

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                1. Roland*

                  Okay. Whatever will the police do if comments on a fresh workplace advice question don’t focus on this???

          2. Emmy Noether*

            I think this is sort of like that thing where going through one’s partner’s phone is wrong, but if one finds evidence of cheating, then that bigger wrong sort of eclipses the first one… It doesn’t make it right, it just makes it moot.

            One can still discuss the appropriateness of going through a partner’s phone (if it’s in the abstract and not to berate the cheated-on person). And since this whole story is less emotionally loaded than my comparison (and it’s an old letter to boot), we can discuss both actions here.

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      2. Pretty Day*

        Agree, inviting them on their own was an overstep. When my colleagues wanted to throw me a bridal shower they asked me if I wanted to invite anyone else and if they didn’t ask I’d be concerned about how they got my family or friend’s contact information.

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    4. Meep*

      Yeah this whole letter is full of people who are too invested.

      I grew up with a girl who faked being pregnant so many times that when she announced it for REAL on FB three years ago, her own mother didn’t believe her at first (literally called her out underneath the post) and had to be explicitly taken with her to the OB. I knew a girl who faked cancer on her own volition in High School. Her parents had to come out and say something. Crazy people actually exist, and I believe that someone COULD easily resort to this. With that said…

      Either they already had their suspicions or they are all too invested in Lysa’s dramatic life and just adding to it.

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    5. ecnaseener*

      I agree it’s super weird, especially in context. I understand that there are some small, close-knit communities where showing up unannounced at your coworker’s mom’s house is a normal thing to do. What I can’t understand is how such a community can simultaneously be *not* close-knit enough that the truth never came out about the child’s health for years.

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      1. a clockwork lemon*

        Someone posted OP’s comments from the original thread below–they were a close-knit department where relevant people involved had independent relationships outside the workplace. As a data point, I grew up in a small town (5000 people give or take) and live now in an even smaller one (pop. 2600) and even in 2024 it’s not uncommon for our neighbors to swing by the house or for us to tell someone to drop by if they need something.

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        1. Paint N Drip*

          That makes sense, thanks for the extra info!
          I think a lot of people don’t really know how small (like.. SMALL) town life actually works. When I purchased some acreage in a town with a population of 250-300, SEVERAL TIMES when I’d be out there landscaping or whatever people would stop by just to basically ask who tf I was – they knew everyone, and I wasn’t on that list! No biggie to me but when I’d relay that anecdote to my coworkers in the big city they were FLABBERGASTED lol

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          1. Chirpy*

            I lived in a small town of like 150 people for a year, and random people would just talk to me about my (obvious because I was new) job when I was at the (only) store. I went to vote six months in and recognized every pollworker and half the people voting.

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            1. Sweet Fancy Pancakes*

              Yeah, I live in a county of around 1000 people, with about 400 of them living in the one town. When I first moved here 5 years ago, it surprised me when total strangers (to me) would mention knowing where I live. I’m very used to it now, and I actually love going to the (one) store in town and knowing most of the people there, or greeting nearly everyone by name in the post office or when I eat at one of the restaurants in town.

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        2. ecnaseener*

          Right, that’s the first part of my comment — I understand they were close-knit. It makes it absolutely baffling that these people had independent relationships with Lysa’s mom, believed her grandkid was terribly sick for years, and somehow never mentioned it to her or any of their mutual connections.

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        3. Baunilha*

          That would be absurd where I live, but I can see it happening at the small town my family is from. Even today, it’s not unusual for people to stop by unannounced at each other’s houses just to ask something because it’s on their way.

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        4. Stunt Apple Breeder*

          Haha, small town life. Shortly after moving to the village (pop. ~2000) where we live now, my husband was approached while walking our dogs by some older teenagers who greeted the dogs by name. He was very surprised when they asked where his wife (me) was. He didn’t realized that the kids had noticed that each of us was wearing our wedding ring when they saw us separately.

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    6. RIP Pillowfort*

      It’s weird but not outside what I’ve experienced in tight-knit workplaces where I live (US South). I got invited to my mother’s retirement party at work as a surprise. They did not go through my mom to ask me and I’ve yet to figure out how they got my cell phone number. I did go and my mom was so excited.

      Not claiming it’s not weird. But people have different tolerances for what’s too weird.

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  2. Elle*

    One thing that sticks out is that we should never contact the coworkers family in a non emergency situation without their permission.

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    2. Starbuck*

      This is true if you don’t already have some kind of relationship with the family, but if it’s someone you know well in town then it’s not so outrageous for an occasion like what they had in mind. They clearly already knew who mom was and where she lived. Some of us do live in small towns/communities where these overlapping relationships are a fact of life.

      Reply ↓
    3. Hlao-roo*

      No update, but the OP posted a number of times in the comments section of the original with more information.

      An explanation of how/why the coworkers went to Lysa’s mother’s house:

      Our department is very tight knit. When we have showers and parties, we usually invite people who are close to the guest of honor. We have held showers for coworkers daughters/wives before. (Any excuse to party I think) Some of us spend time with each other outside of work. I know this isn’t usually a good idea usually but we’ve worked together for a while and get along well.

      The information was given to us by the husband of one of my coworkers who works with the mother (with her permission) I’m not sure why they decided to go see her instead of calling.

      A bit more background on the people still talking to Lysa because they want to stir up trouble:

      Its more the people who want to catch her and call her out on lies. Ask her questions and wait for a contradiction then call her out on it loudly. There’s only a couple and we’ve tried to shut it down when it happens by changing the subject when they tell us what the newest lie is. We don’t want more drama in the department. This is way more than enough.

      And the approach that the OP and most other coworkers are taking toward Lysa at work in the aftermath (the most update-esque of OP’s comments):

      After a few days to get over the initial shock/upset/anger, we’ve basically done as you’ve suggested. Some maybe a little more coldly but those are the people who were the most supportive and feel the most betrayed. We only discuss work related items with her. We are polite and professional. She have given her nothing to complain about and done nothing out of the ordinary, except avoid talking to her outside of work related issues and that is how we plan to continue. It’s just unfortunate that now I’ll be looking at anyone new to the team with jaded eyes with that lesson learned.

      Reply ↓
      2. Ellis Bell*

        This makes everything way clearer, because “with permission” the mother passed on her address to these colleagues through a mutual contact. She clearly wanted to speak to them face to face.

        Reply ↓
    4. 3dognight*

      I commented below, in the original post in 2017 (you can search the title of this post) OP commented a lot in the comments. User name of OP. The girl was really lying. The mom worked with the husband of a co-worker and had been at other events. So, they knew the mom. Lysa was seen in town at a time that she was “in Italy”, their phone records are open to look at for call stat purposes, it’s not an overstep.

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    5. Just Thinkin' Here*

      Understanding the mom worked with someone tied to the co-worker group helps categorizing the discussion as non-creepy.

      That said, management now has an employee who has lied extensively to those closest to her. What makes them think she isn’t lying to others such as clients, customers, vendors, etc? Someone with this much questionable judgement should not be near any internal information and certainly shouldn’t represent the company in any public relations or legal fashion.

      Reply ↓
  4. Not on board*

    I never saw this one originally. This is a hard one. On the one hand, you’re very angry and feel taken advantage of, and on the other hand, lying about stuff like this is clearly a symptom of some sort of mental health situation. If I were a friend of Lysa’s and found out she had lied about this stuff at work, I’d be keeping an eye out for her child as someone capable of something like this could exhibit either Munchausen or Munchausen by Proxy. It’s not exactly the same as what happened here but there are definitely similarities. I wonder how it worked out.

    Reply ↓
    1. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

      I also feel sympathy for someone troubled like that, though of course it’s different when you’re someone who was lied to.

      Once I had a coworker, beloved by everyone in the office, who had some sympathetic tales of woe. She died suddenly, and at her memorial service in the office it came out that she told each person a different story about her life. I always wondered what would drive a person to do that.

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      1. Paint N Drip*

        Oh… that’s deeply sad. As much as I don’t like parts of myself or have misgivings about decisions I’ve made, at my funeral people will remember who I actually am and not an idealized version of me. This gives me the same heartache as seeing a highly edited photo at a funeral/remembrance or on the obituary, there is so much beauty and truth in being really known flaws and all and so much emptiness in celebrating a false trumped-up version of someone. Ugh >_<

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  5. BellaStella*

    Wow. It seems that management is failing here. Not addressing this is a disservice to the rest of the team and office.

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    1. Birb*

      Agreed. ESPECIALLY if she was also lying to get out of work for “appointments” or have others cover her work for her.

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      1. BellaStella*

        Yes this was my thought. Also I currently work with two people who have been caught lying a lot and well the upper management is crap and not dealing with it at all.

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      2. ferrina*

        Not to mention financially contributing to gas gift cards and possibly other items. Of course coworkers are furious!

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      3. Charlotte Lucas*

        This. She could be lying due to a mental health issue, but I have also known very manipulative people who just lied whenever they thought it would serve their purpose. Or even just because they can. (Same strategy con artists use.)

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  6. Caramel & Cheddar*

    I know it’s why the coworkers found out Lysa was lying, but I’m baffled by going to her mom’s house to ask her who to invite to the work bridal shower. You don’t need to be inviting outside people to the work shower in the first place, and you definitely don’t need to be going in person to someone’s parent’s house to figure out an extended guest list. If I was a coworker not lying through my teeth (and perhaps even if I was!), I’d find this to be an incredibly weird overstep.

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    1. learnedthehardway*

      This – are they sure that they got the right house? I mean, the name “Lisa” isn’t all that unusual. Perhaps there are some crossed wires happening here?

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      1. TooTiredToThink*

        Everyone use’s fake names in these stories to make them more anonymous. The person’s name isn’t “Lysa”.

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      2. WillowSunstar*

        Yeah, it seems like there was a little wiggle room for error and everyone just assumed. How did they get Lisa’s mom’s house address unless she was still living there? Most emergency contact forms just want a phone number and/or email address these days. Also there’s a small chance mom could have really disliked the fiancé, had mental issues herself, early onset dementia or something, we just don’t know.

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        1. carrot cake*

          Who knows. The fact is “Lysa” committed criminal fraud, if we are to take the LW at their word.

          Anything else is pure speculation and therefore useless.

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          1. Benihana scene stealer*

            What’s the criminal fraud – that her coworkers chipped in and bought her a gas card? I think you’re stretching it a bit

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            1. Lab Rabbit*

              According to Wikipedia (which is always 100% accurate /s ) criminal fraud is

              The requisite elements of perhaps the most general form of criminal fraud, theft by false pretense, are the intentional deception of a victim by false representation or pretense with the intent of persuading the victim to part with property and with the victim parting with property in reliance on the representation or pretense and with the perpetrator intending to keep the property from the victim.

              So it seems to me that if Lisa/Lysa did this with the intent of getting money from her coworkers, then it’s fraud. But if they just did it without being asked, then it’s probably not. It all depends upon intent.

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        2. Roland*

          All of these concerns are answered by OP (commenting as “OP”) in the original letter, linked elsewhere in this comment section. There was mistaken identity and the coworker was lying.

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      3. ecnaseener*

        How would a case of mistaken identity square with Lysa’s whole “oh yeah, she doesn’t like him and pretends he doesn’t exist” response?

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    2. fhqwhgads*

      IIRC there was an update at some point (or maybe just in the comments) and the people knew her mom already for completely unrelated reasons. It wasn’t just going to coworker’s mom’s house in a vacuum.

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      1. Hlao-roo*

        Yeah, I just checked the original comments section and one of Lysa/OP’s coworkers worked at the same place as Lysa’s mother:

        The information was given to us by the husband of one of my coworkers who works with the mother (with her permission) I’m not sure why they decided to go see her instead of calling.

        The OP also mentioned in another comment that they all lived in a small town, so I think that makes inviting a family member to a work shower less surprising than in this took place in a big (or even medium-sized) city.

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    3. Tippy*

      Per the comments on the original post the mother worked with the husband of another co-worker and mom was asked prior to coming over (and okayed her address being given out).

      At the end of the day it’s a small town with a culture of the work being very entangled with family (which tracks with most small towns I’ve been in and everyone already knows everyone).

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    4. Ellis Bell*

      They had a common acquaintance and the mother passed her address on through them, so she was happy to be visited.

      Reply ↓
  7. Birb*

    I feel like the lying is hard to address, definitely… but surely the continual accepting of gifts of monetary value was defrauding her coworkers intentionally? She could have declined those gifts and meals and coffees, but she chose to continue lying to coworkers so the support and gifts would keep coming. I would absolutely formally discipline someone for that.

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    1. Ex-prof*

      Agreed. I also think accepting those gifts was akin to the rich fiancé fantasy. She wanted to be showered with attention and gifts.

      Reply ↓
      1. MsSolo (UK)*

        This definitely seems to be more about the attention than the money – she’s not setting up GoFundMe’s or soliciting large donations, and she switched away from a lie that had her coworkers buying her gifts to a lie where she bought herself gifts. I appreciate that for the coworkers, some of whom may have felt pressured to donate gas money they really needed for themselves, it’s going to feel like a long con, but it seems like it’s the act of publicly receiving gifts, rather than the gifts themselves, that’s the drive.

        Reply ↓
    3. ferrina*

      Were any of these provided or funded by the organization? If so, that’s even worse and the company should absolutely being clawing that back.

      Reply ↓
    4. Somehow I Manage*

      Yep. Someone telling a lie may be mostly harmless. Like if a coworker tells you they volunteered at the animal shelter over the weekend or spent a summer in the Maldives when they were younger. No harm, no foul really. No one else is impacted by the lie. But when coworkers are making donations of stuff and taking on extra work to provide support, and someone allows it to continue, I think it would be really difficult to trust that person going forward.

      Reply ↓
  8. Ashley*

    This a growing problem — I’ve listened to several podcasts on factitious disorder and it’s increasing in scope and scale, according to police interviewed. It definitely affects workplaces in insidious ways, including financial.

    Two of the best podcasts covering this are:
    Something Was Wrong: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/something-was-wrong/id1447286743

    Nobody Should Believe Me: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nobody-should-believe-me/id1615637188

    Reply ↓
    1. TooTiredToThink*

      Is it increasing in scope or scale – or do people just now have the tools to uncover it? I was on a message board in the early 00s and everyone was 95% positive that one member had something like this – they were pretty sure she didn’t even have a husband or kids (that she said she did) – but the tools available then meant there was just a suspicion. Now a days it would be super easy to disprove many of her stories.

      Reply ↓
      1. WillowSunstar*

        We do have more social media now, and many people use their real names on their accounts. But still, you’d have to deliberately be searching for the info.

        Reply ↓
      2. Dawn*

        This is very off-the-cuff thinking from me, but I’d suspect that it is actually increasing in scope and scale – because of social media.

        While it’s not well understood, typically people who behave this way are looking for attention of some variety – and in a world where everybody is connected and everyone is always getting attention for the amazing things they’re purportedly doing (“influencers” are now renting fancy apartments by the hour to record videos in, etc,) the people pathologically wanting attention almost certainly feel that they have to ramp their efforts up because they have to be a bigger deal than the stuff happening on Instagram or Tiktok.

        That is entirely observational on my part and I could be way off-base, but I suspect that it’s a large part of what’s happening.

        Reply ↓
        1. Captain Hastings*

          Hope I’m not repeating anyone here – in addition to social media providing a platform, with the Internet people have more access to detailed information about specific illnesses and treatments, making it easier to concoct very convincing stories.

          Reply ↓
      3. Meep*

        I can only speak for online creative community, but I think it is easier to fake illnesses (because you don’t actually see the person) and garner sympathy (because they usually go after vulnerable people – re: neurodivergent & misfits, often from their own abusive households). There is definitely an uptick of people faking cancer or tragedies in the past 10 years. But it has been around for awhile.

        I remember when I was a teenager (15 years ago), “a friend” online (I never really considered them one, but they thought of me as such) faked being in a coma and had her “brother” contact me. Of course, she spent this coma on her couch in the living room, which made it obviously fake to me, but she managed to swindle a few people before she got banned. All over Neopoints.

        Since there, I have definitely noticed an uptick of questionable GoFundMes all over the place. But my solution is to just ignore it unless I know at least one of their friends well enough.

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        1. Strive to Excel*

          “Neopoints” – that does not surprise me. Seeing something similar happen right now on a different petsite.

          Reply ↓
        2. Charlotte Lucas*

          Yep. SM makes some of this easier.

          And if I were a con artist, I would also love to have a diagnosis I could point to explaining it all away. (Not saying that the disorder doesn’t exist, just that a skilled con could use it to their advantage.)

          Hoaxes have existed for centuries. Sometimes the hoaxer has an endgame, and sometimes they don’t.

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      4. Antilles*

        While the tools do exist to quickly check these things, in a workplace environment, I suspect the vast majority of people aren’t actually doing that until/unless something triggers their “this seems off” instinct or doesn’t add up.
        If my employee tells me her daughter is sick with cancer, I’m not going to jump to demanding details about the cancer and start Googling her oncologist; I’m going to nod sympathetically and ask her what support she needs from the company.

        Reply ↓
        1. Cat Tree*

          Yeah. I’d rather give unwarranted sympathy to a hundred liars than to not believe one person who is truly suffering through something like a child having cancer. The money definitely makes this more complicated though.

          Reply ↓
          1. Somehow I Manage*

            I agree re: sympathy. If you’re providing moral support/sympathy/prayers/good vibes/listening ear, you’re out nothing but time and some space in your brain. But when there is investment by the way of time – picking up some additional tasks – or through financial support – gas cards, lunches, coffees – you probably erode trust that your team needs to have in you. I don’t think I’d be as upset about the $50 I donated toward gas or the coffee I picked up as I would be about the fact that someone carried on an elaborate lie and took advantage, and it would be really difficult to want to work with that person.

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      5. Ellis Bell*

        The kind of pathological liar I’ve experienced is a lot like Lysa; they lie without considering how easy it will be to get caught. Here’s someone who knew that her mother knew her coworkers (or one of their spouses) and didn’t seem to foresee that this was a big enough lie to travel back to her mother. Lying about your phone calls, when your system makes it easy to anyone in the office to check what number you called is another stupidity; she could have just used her own phone! In the OP’s own original comments it says Lysa brought one of her daughter’s to the scene of the crime, without even considering that the kid might get asked about her sister’s illness. You don’t even need technology to catch some of them.

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    2. Not on board*

      I never listened to the first but I definitely binged “Nobody Should Believe Me”. It was super fascinating and interesting. I really feel for those victimized but I also feel bad for the person perpetrating these lies – they are often harming themselves irreparably in their need for attention.

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    5. Strive to Excel*

      The only thing I dislike about these recommendations is the implication that extensive lying = some sort of mental illness. Sometimes they’re related. But I see a really frequent correlation between people doing something morally wrong and assumptions that they are mentally ill. Sometime people are just jerks. Sometimes they start lying and things spiral out of control.

      And maybe this is a terminology problem! Right now we use “mental illness” to describe both:
      * “This person has been medically diagnosed with a biochemical or other brain difference that will make their life hard” – bipolar, schizophrenia, etc
      * “This person is behaving in a pattern that is so out of touch with normal society and societal ethics that by definition they are mentally ill” – Munchausen’s, factitious disorder, various flavors of narcissism.
      The whole approach and treatment of these two patterns is and should be very different. But to me it’s unhelpful if we start assuming that unethical behavior=mentally ill in large part because then people in group A get all the negative flak for the behavior from groups A and B.

      Reply ↓
      1. Panda (she/her)*

        Thank you for articulating this! I have several diagnosed mental illnesses (GAD and MDD) and it is so frustrating for people to be constantly conflating terrible behaviour with mental illness. It contributes to a lot of stigma around mental illness.

        Yes, sometimes mental illness is the cause. And sometimes the person is just an asshole.

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      2. I didn't say banana*

        For the record, narcissism is a diagnosable mental health disorder. Sometimes, mental illnesses do cause bad behaviour.

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        1. Boof*

          Nooo i am quite sure it does not work like that- having a diagnosis is just a category of problem, not a certification that it is a physical/uncontrollable condition! Personality disorders are clusters of specific maladaptive behavior patterns; not biochemical problems like schizophrenia. There may be reasons for them, like childhood trauma, there are treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy, but any behavioral is modifiable with enough effort.

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    6. Frieda*

      A girl I volunteered with in college (so in the Stone Age, roughly speaking) had “cancer” or “endometriosis” depending on what she’d told whomever you asked, and it was definitely not a case of her being previously misdiagnosed and then finding out the situation was different or something – she claimed to some folks that she was actively receiving cancer treatment but was simultaneously telling other people that she had endometriosis. And maybe other problems – I didn’t do a full audit of her friend group or anything.

      (And whew, a google of her name shows an interesting personal history since that time.)

      Reply ↓
  9. CubeFarmer*

    I remember this letter because it was so out there.

    Kind of reminds me of that documentary about the fake doctor–“He Lied About Everything.”

    Who knows, maybe that’s the coworker in question!

    Reply ↓
    1. H.Regalis*

      It’s hard to search for OP, so here are links to a few:

      https://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/our-coworker-lied-about-having-a-sick-child-and-a-rich-fiance.html#comment-1402182

      https://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/our-coworker-lied-about-having-a-sick-child-and-a-rich-fiance.html#comment-1402774

      https://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/our-coworker-lied-about-having-a-sick-child-and-a-rich-fiance.html#comment-1402152

      https://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/our-coworker-lied-about-having-a-sick-child-and-a-rich-fiance.html#comment-1402157

      https://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/our-coworker-lied-about-having-a-sick-child-and-a-rich-fiance.html#comment-1402156

      https://www.askamanager.org/2017/03/our-coworker-lied-about-having-a-sick-child-and-a-rich-fiance.html#comment-1402187

      Reply ↓
      1. Starbuck*

        FYI you can search for commenter names by adding the invisible asterisk at the end. So OP* is much easier to search.

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  11. Michigander*

    I would be very interested in an update on this one. It seems unlikely that things would ever have gone back to normal, or at least not for a very long time.

    Reply ↓
    1. Dawn*

      I’d imagine that like a lot of non-updates, this one’s probably pretty unexciting. Either OP or Lysa moved on, or the company closed. I wouldn’t expect that Lysa – who obviously craves attention – would stay there forever with everyone shunning her.

      Reply ↓
    2. Aggretsuko*

      I don’t think they *can* “go back to normal.” Once you know something about a person like that, you can’t trust what she says.

      Reply ↓
    3. Benihana scene stealer*

      Yeah, unless Lysa’s role is one where they barely have to interact with her I don’t see how this resolves itself, though I suppose time can heal a lot.

      Reply ↓
  13. what in the world*

    Wanted to share a similar story here:

    Ten or so years ago I was hard up for cash and saw a job listing on Craigslist where a guy needed someone to act as his fiancee and come into his store to buy something. I was curious and responded. He had told all his coworkers that he had a fiancee, and then he told them that his fiancee was pregnant, and so they all gave him baby gifts. He gave the baby gifts to his actually pregnant sister. He said his coworkers were starting to get suspicious after the baby was supposed to be born and he needed to introduce them to his fiancee, and would I go in and pretend to be her and meet his coworkers for $500?

    I almost did it, but: (a) he told his coworkers his fiancee is asian, I am white (though he didn’t see a problem with this), (b) I do not look like I just had a baby, (c) the story was supposed to be to buy an iPad for an upcoming trip, what new mom would go on a trip right after giving birth?, (d) he asked if I would have “bedroom fun” for an extra $500.

    I do not know what happened to him.

    Reply ↓
    2. Literally a Cat*

      I feel like, based on the surprise shower and turning up to Lysa’s mum’s unannounced, OP’s office culture is already too foreign for me to really be able to comment on what I’d do in her position. IDK, no more gifts, just generic “ok” with Lysa’s tales? I really don’t know.

      I sure hope Lysa gets the help she needs though.

      Reply ↓
    3. Yeah...*

      Interestingly odd story.

      He took advantage if the niceness of his coworkers. He wanted an iPad but did not wish to pay for it (for whatever reason). He know his coworkers would be willing the pay for baby gifts for his (fake) fiancée. I have no insight as to why one would think this was a good idea other than his value system does not align with mine.

      Further, he figured if you were willing be his pretend fiancée you could be willing to be paid for other services. Again, different value system.

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      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        So, if he had $1000 to throw away on keeping up the pretense (and a little extra, I guess), why not just… but an iPad? (This is what fascinates me about a certain brand of criminal; they could often have the same or better – definitely safer – results by just going about things honestly and don’t.)

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        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          I am equally fascinated by people who believe obvious lies or refuse to admit they’ve been lied to, even when shown clear evidence. (Highly recommend the book Cultish. Confident Women is also an interesting read, although the author is a little too enamored of female con artists.)

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          1. Yeah...*

            Not a psychologist or a psychiatrist but sometimes “people who believe obvious lies or refuse to admit they’ve been lied to, even when shown clear evidence” can feel like their intelligence is being attacked.

            Interesting book suggestions. I will see what the my library has.

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        2. Heidi*

          I thought that the fake fiancee was supposed to buy an iPad from their store with the $500 (or maybe he would pay for the iPad and just keep it). I wonder why he didn’t just bring in the sister’s baby and pretend it was his baby. Then there would be no need for a fake fiancee.

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    4. Ellis Bell*

      Now that I’ve stopped dry heaving, I’m really fascinated by this guy’s logic. 1) If he can get someone to pretend to be a fiancée, it will no longer matter that their race has somehow changed and that’s pretty convincing proof of a lie, 2) If you’re going to pretend, how about really pretending when we’re alone! What a moron..

      Reply ↓
  14. Czech Mate*

    My parents worked with someone like this back in the 80s (dad owned a small business, mom was an employee). The guy in question was named Randall, and he was supposed to be a programmer. Randall claimed he had once worked for NASA. When he was called out for not being at work and not being an effective employee, he claimed to have HIV/AIDS. His boyfriend would also constantly call the office looking for Randall because he was lying about where he was going/wasn’t coming home, etc. In the end, Randall was fired after he was asked to give a presentation in front of the county and…didn’t know anything about how computers worked.

    People may continuously lie about things that are going on in their personal life for attention, for love/affection/acceptance, or even due to a personality disorder. This is concerning but may or may not be an actual issue. However, it definitely could signal that they’re being dishonest about their work as well (as was the case with Randall) or trying to cover for something more sinister, so it’s absolutely something to look into if you find out you’re working with a serial liar.

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  15. H.Regalis*

    I think it’s bullshit that management is like, “Welp, we can’t do anything.” They could fire her if they wanted to. They just don’t want to deal with this.

    I think her being an outcast in the department is the natural consequence of her actions. The OP says people will still work with her on work things, but that is it. I think that’s probably the best it’s ever going to be. If it were Lysa writing in, I’d say to get your ass into therapy and work on finding another job as quickly as you can, because staying at this place sounds intolerable and is going to shred her mental health even further.

    The whole situation just sucks. No one there is ever going to trust her again. She clearly has some serious problems if she’s making up titanic-sized lies like this and carrying on with them for the better part of a decade. I hope she was able to get some help. Like Alison said, this is not something that happy, healthy people do.

    Reply ↓
  16. Pretty as a Princess*

    I had a person in my personal life for nearly a decade that was even wackier than this when we finally caught it. After cutting them out in every way shape and form… the person has, in the intervening years, begun reaching out and attempting to comment on my spouse’s professional posts on LinkedIn. It’s an absolute nightmare once you realize that level of betrayal because you have no way to ground ANYTHING else that surrounded that person in any kind of fidelity. As a recipient of those lies, that person was in my life. They knew my kids. They know where we work. They know how to access us professionally.

    And we weren’t even out anything but the typical emotional investment in a friendship (and the time and effort that goes in to that). But I had to sit my kids down and say that this person was no longer a safe adult for them.

    If I had been in their workplace – I would unfortunately have to be suspicious about every piece of data they had access to, every place they could have represented the company, etc. Every interaction they reported.

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  17. Keymaster of Gozer (She/Her)*

    Reformed serial liar here. In my 20s I had a lot of genuine trauma but the sympathy always ran out fast. so I just invented more and more. I desperately wanted someone, anyone, to say ‘hey, something is seriously wrong with you’. Deep down I didn’t want to be believed, I wanted someone to give a damn about my swiftly decreasing mental state.

    With the hindsight of 30 odd years and a LOT of therapy I know that there’s a) enough pain in life that you don’t need to invent more b) someone will always have it worse than you so don’t try and one up them c) peoples patience for other peoples trauma is finite and most importantly d) unless you put in the work to fix yourself ain’t nobody going to do it for you.

    So I very much sympathise with her. It’s a terrifying state. But at the same time the best thing to do is to stop giving the attention. Beyond a bare ‘oh wow, that sounds bad’. It’s rather like dealing with an alcoholic (10 years sober here) in that you have to step back and be cold in order for them to see the reality.

    I hope she did get help of the professional kind and turned herself around. It’s a lot less stressful to not be inventing things and keeping your stories straight 24/7.

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    1. Irish Teacher.*

      Yikes, you may have given me some insight into a serial liar I once worked with, like 25 years ago. She didn’t invent trauma, mostly just…stupid lying, stuff that was often easily disproven and that didn’t even matter anyway. And she didn’t even seem to care if people realised she was lying and didn’t seem to even try and keep her stories straight. She’d tell you one thing today and the opposite tomorrow or she’d lie about a conversation you were present for.

      Looking back with a lot more knowledge, both because I’m no longer 20 years old and because we’ve learnt a lot about mental health in the past quarter of a century, I do suspect she had some mental health issues going on and I also suspect there was some family or other trauma in her past. And there definitely seemed to be an element of getting attention to it but it didn’t occur to me until now that it might have been a way of drawing attention to the fact that things were not OK with her.

      So basically, thank you for the insight. I lost contact with this person a long time ago (and I don’t know if this were true for her) but this is valuable information if I encounter another person with those behaviours.

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    2. Panda (she/her)*

      I can relate so much to feeling like something is off but not being able to ask for help. I got diagnosed with anxiety, depression and ADHD in my thirties, but because I was what used to be called “high functioning” (AKA really good at masking my issues), I never felt like I deserved help and struggled to even articulate my issues to therapists (I mean, I know I have a great career and impressive athletic achievements and a seemingly perfect life…but I’m just, like SUUUUPER stressed all the time and have chronic insomnia?). But I desperately wanted someone to realize I was NOT. OKAY.

      Reply ↓
  18. Not The Earliest Bird*

    I had a co-worker who got caught in a web of lies, and when it was too much to keep up with, completely ghosted. It was an escalating spiral of personal dramas that just spun out of control. His car got stolen, so he couldn’t get to work. Then he had some breathing issues that turned into lung cancer. Then his grandkids got taken away by their father who hadn’t seen them in years. Then his house burned down. All in a span of a month. Then it turned out that none of this was true, except his car getting repo’d, not stolen- he didn’t even have grandkids and didn’t have lung cancer. We found out when he disappeared for three days, and we called his emergency contact to make sure he was still alive, and she told us the truth. We don’t know where he’s working now, but it’s not at my company.

    Reply ↓
  19. WorkInnit*

    It was nice of the coworkers to pool together to help the colleague out with gas money etc. And it’s a sad situation that the coworker quite possibly lied about her personal life.
    However I also think, like some people have already remarked, that all of these coworkers seem way too deeply invested in each other’s personal lives.

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  20. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

    In the 1980s, my supervisor told me that my co-worker Ed was married to the woman who had played the older daughter on “Father Knows Best,” and Ed and his wife were very rich from the residuals. I said to Ed, “So you’re married to Elinor Donahue.” He said no, that Elinor had replaced his wife on the show. His wife had been the ORIGINAL older daughter. I had my doubts that Elinor had replaced anyone. One time, I ran into Ed and his wife on the street, and Ed dragged his wife away as fast as he could. I thought that he didn’t want to risk my asking her, “What’s Robert Young really like?”

    Eventually our supervisor left the company and was replaced. The new supervisor asked us to submit our job descriptions to him. As I was the only one in the department who knew how to type, I typed up my own job description, and everyone else, except for Ed, wrote theirs out and gave them to me to type. I asked Ed for his job description, but he said that his wife was going to type it for him. Okay.

    Eventually, our supervisor asked me about Ed’s job description, and I told him that Ed had said that his wife was going to type it for him. He asked Ed for it. Ed said that he had lost it. Our supervisor said that Ed needed to give it to him, so Ed wrote it up and gave it to me. I protested to Ed that he had included tasks that he never did, but he insisted that I type it as it was written, so I did. When our supervisor confronted Ed about his claiming to do things that he never did, Ed admitted that he had never done them. Fortunately, our supervisor never asked me why I had knowingly typed a job description that I knew to be very inaccurate. If he had asked me, I would have said, “Well, I don’t know what Ed does all day.”

    Once Ed bragged about how much money he won at roulette at Atlantic City. He told us the amount that he had bet and the amount that he had won. Then I told him that he should have won twice as much as what he said. He then screamed that they had cheated him. I believe that he never won anything at all and was very bad at math.

    He talked about having been invited to Eddie Fisher’s wedding. Then it turned into his being a busboy at Eddie Fisher’s wedding. I don’t know which of Eddie Fisher’s weddings it was, and I am not even sure that he was a busboy at any of them.

    He talked about walking down the street one day and seeing Tony Curtis being filmed in a movie. Ed said that he yelled, “Hey, Bernie!” and Tony immediately halted the shooting and insisted that Ed be in the scene. Unfortunately, the scene wound up on the cutting-room floor.

    Our supervisor eventually wound up firing Ed. I guess his lying about his personal life affected his working life.

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  21. Zee*

    Someone I know shaved her head in high school and told everyone she had cancer. It didn’t take very long for that to come out as a lie. But hey, she was a teenager, and that’s sort of more excusable.

    On the flip side, earlier this year I had a run of very bad things happen in a very short period of time, and I was really worried that people were going to start thinking I was making it up for attention (or for extra time off work).
    1. My dad died.
    2. A week later, my friend died while 8 months pregnant. They did an emergency c-section, but the baby ended up dying shortly after too.
    3. Two weeks after that, my mom was diagnosed with cancer.

    Reply ↓
    1. Belle*

      Zee, just have to say I’m sorry you have had such a hard year. I hope your mom is doing okay and you are taking care of yourself.

      Reply ↓
  22. Despachito*

    I have yet to wrap my head around such things.

    I used to have a very good friend, let us say Anne. She was almost 20 years older and I looked up to her as my mentor. We shared a hobby and she made it so much more interesting to me. A small group of friends formed around her, we had fun with the hobby and grew very tight as a group. We spent vacations together, frequently visited, celebrated birthdays. I really deeply admired her for her deep knowledge in many areas.

    Then the members of the group got married, had kids, and left the hobby. She remained single with no kids, but we remained in intense contact.

    Then she fell seriously ill, and we cared for her in our home because we were her closest people.

    After two years she died, and we announced it to the people from the hobby.

    And then I received a strange e-mail of her friend I did not know. Basically condolences and regrets that a mother of two had died, and she asked me to convey this information to Anne’s husband. I was flabbergasted because I knew for sure Anne had no husband or kids but the friend was positively referring to her.

    I looked at the internet and found out that she had another group of friends around a different hobby, and she presented herself as married (the “husband” even wrote his own posts) with two kids, one of whom was the spitting image of MY kid, the other was a concoction of my other kid and another friend’s.

    I was just taken aback, and on the fence what to reply. I finally decided not to reveal the true state of facts because it would hurt her internet friend group who apparently revered her, and there would be no good in it. So I replied something noncommittal that could have been read both ways, and that was the end of it.

    But we realized that she actually lied about quite a lot MINOR things in her life. Sometimes it was to make herself more interesting, sometimes to avoid conflict, and sometimes… just because. I must confess I was deeply hurt and had to come to terms with that in my head (why did she feel the need to lie even to people who loved her)? because I really admired her as she was, she needed absolutely no lies to ramp it up. I think it had to be some sort of a mental disorder. It was great to have her as a friend regardless though.

    Reply ↓

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