Unfortunately, in the world of business negotiations, not everyone plays nice. Some parties will bring out dirty tricks to help them “win” or perhaps hopelessly deadlock the negotiation to avoid reaching agreement.

You don’t have to fall prey to dirty tricks—the first step is to learn to recognize unethical or dirty negotiating maneuvers. If the other party uses one of these tactics or maneuvers, you are dealing with dirty tricks:

Bribery maneuver: The unethical use of payoffs or collusion for the other party to get its way.

Missing person: An authority trick where the person who has the ability to grant final approval is deliberately absent

Blackmail: Basically, a threat, this is an amount maneuver where the other party says pay this or else!

Scrambled eggs maneuver: Deliberately creating confusion by throwing lots of issues and numbers.

Low balling: Providing a really low figure—an offer too good to be true—just to get into a negotiation.

Personal attacks: Deliberately attacking someone to destabilize the negotiation.

Stretchout maneuver: Where one party will deliberately extend the negotiations over a long period, in order to reveal uncertainties prior to agreement.

There are dozens of other dirty tricks, ranging from deliberately providing the wrong information to engaging in bait and switch. To protect yourself, the best thing is to be prepared for the other party to engage in unethical maneuvering so you can recognize something is amiss before you get too far.

What kinds of dirty tricks do you see most often?