Survey: Britons lie 4 times a day

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LONDON, April 2 (UPI) -- A British polling company said its latest survey indicates Britons tell an average of four lies a day, with the most common being a lack of phone signal.

OnePoll said its survey of 4,300 adults suggests Britons tell an average of nearly 1,500 lies per year, with the most popular lie being a claim of having no phone signal when failing to return a missed call, The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.

The survey found one in six male respondents admitted to telling an average of two lies per day to their wives or girlfriends while nearly a quarter of the men said they had lied to their significant others about how good they looked in an outfit.

One in three Britons said they regularly lie about their weight.

"As a nation we are obsessed with trying to be nice and not upsetting people," a OnePoll spokesman said. "Often little white lies can paper over what we actually want to say. Most of these were considered either completely harmless or tactically necessary depending on the situation in which they are delivered."

The report did not say when the survey was taken.