Honesty in Business

How important do you think honesty is in business? I, for one, am tired of organizations lying to me. In my position, I work with many different companies. I ask each vendor I work with if they have their own sample. 99.9% of them say yes.

Technically, I can’t prove they are lying to me which makes it worse because now I don’t know who to trust and who not to trust.

Technically, if they have 1 panelist, they wouldn’t be lying. It sure would be deceiving though.

I just wish honesty was a value every organization had. Do you agree? Or, do you believe there are times that little white lies are okay?