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Insurance Claims to be Tested by Lie Detector
Albanach writes "HBOS, one of the largest UK banks is to introduce random lie detector analysis of insurance claims according to this article from the Edinburgh Evening News. The three month trial will see calls from its 1.5 million policy holders randomly subjected to voice stress analysis. Those flagged up will then receive a set of questions designed to expose 'potential fraudsters'."
No, lie detector results are not admissable in court in Europe.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Antipolygraph.org
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Unless I missed something, these are banks doing this not the government or police. And they aren't detaining you or performing any search or seizure. It is a phone system that looks for stress in your voice. I am sure it is pretty unreliable and not admissable in any court of law, though.
Or did you just mean - First Post?
From a page about the Truster Voice Stress Analyzer:
What is a voice stress analyzer, you might wonder? It is a machine that measures components of the human voice--frequency modulations--that are correlated with stress. No machine can detect stress directly, much less distinguish whether the stress is due to lying, guilt, stutter, fear, constipation, or some other emotion or physical condition. The frequency modulations, called "micro tremors" by those who measure them, must be interpreted by a human being. The machine doesn't do the analysis, the examiner does.
Here are some basic facts about insurance companies:-
1) They are out to make money
2) They make said money based purely on others suffering
3) They will try to weasel (no offence to weasels) out of *any* contract
4) Any money saved will *not* reduce premiums but increase bonuses and dividends
5) Insurance companies have never worried about legality. If they reject 50 claims (illegally) and only 5 have the time, energy and money to fight them they have made money on the other 45. All costs that the 5 have to pay, they cannot get back
6) Lie detectors are inammisable in UK courts - but that won't stop Insurance companies.
In the UK insurance companies work a "your a lieing defrauding piece of crap" policy. It's not even "guilty until proven innocent" policy. Most of the time Insurance companies believe _all_ people are trying to illegally claim.
Actually, insurance really isn't. Note to pundits: I do work at an insurance company, albeit as a technology-related intern.
.96 cents.
This year my company had it's highest amount of money made in a long time off of premiums. After cat damages (mass catastrophies are tracked differently due to reinsurance.... it's a long idea, and I'm not sure I could explain it well)... anyway, after all damages and claims paid out, our company made 96% return on premium.
That is to say, for each dollar collected in Premiums for policies, we paid out
This was astonishing for the finacial analyist! Most of the time, these numbers are around 114 or 108. That means on the property/casualaty side of the insurance agencies, the company loses money on all premiums collected. (Not as a result, but it's a good ratio to be able to judge the industry).
Anyway, Insurance companies make most of their money off of Investments in Bond/Stock markets. Insurance companies really are brokerages of a sort. Say your company has a 401k-ish plan. That money gets paid under a group header to an insurance company. That company, to make money for itself and you, invests in bonds (at my company) and stocks (at some others... we don't need huge returns with large sums of money, especially for huge risks). With the money the company has invested, it makes money.
Insurance is not a sham, it operates under the assumptions that finacial analysits can make more money than a random algorithm that buys stock/bonds/futures/money-market shares.
Note, I am a 2nd year intern here, I know insurance from presentations, and a mother who works in the industry. This information is not guarenteed to be true, but I'm pretty sure this is how it works. Take a look at quarterly earnings reports from Insurance companies... look at the combined ratios.
Insurance companies, at least my insurance company, are not out there to screw policy holders. We rather like ours. We don't like fraud, fraud is.... fraudulent. I didn't have a high opinion of insurance either until I found out how it worked.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Here's another excellent resource on the subject:
... they are basically an intimidation tool. They've never caught a spy with a polygraph. And if they eliminated everybody who failed them, our cleared workforce would be decimated.
The Polygraph and Lie Detection Some quotes:
Polygraph Accuracy Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy.
Theoretical Basis The theoretical rational for the polygraph is quite weak....
Utility Polygrap examinations may have utility to the extent that they can elicit admissions and confessions, deter undesired activity, and instill public confidence. However, such utility is seperate from polygraph validity.
I think the last point is most telling, and in fact, an associate that used to do counter-espionage polys for the DoD confirmed this
Thats why they do a baseline first. You start with questions that are pretty much guaranteed to be right. For example you confirm their name, their address, their phone number etc. This is used to establish a baseline for their voice stress levels. Its the same way that polygraphs work. You think if you are hooked up to all this equipment your pulse and resperation aren't going to be slightly elevated? Of course they are, but they establish a baseline first before asking the questions they are really interested in.
The other thing about this whole thing is that this isn't going to be the end of the process, its just one more thing to check. Kind of like if you file two claims too close together they take a closer look, even if both are legitimate. If you show more stress they are going to take a closer look.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
they have to find a way to pay the CEO over a million quid a year
The annual report for HBOS, the merged Halifax and Bank of Scotland operation, showed that chief executive James Crosby was paid 1m last year - up from 690,000 when he ran just the Halifax.
Peter Burt, the HBOS deputy chairman and former chief executive of the Bank of Scotland, took home slightly less than 1m at 994,000.
just like winning the national lottery every year, so don't forget to smile when you pay them your insurance
Thats why they do a baseline first. You start with questions that are pretty much guaranteed to be right.
Actually that' "baseline" is all bullshit.
The first questions to "calibrate" a polygraph are simply to mindfuck the person being tested. The user is told to tell the truth on a meaningless question, then told to lie on another meaningless question. The polygraph operator looks quizzically at the data then says something like "You're a terrible liar! It's off the charts!".
Lie detecting is fraud,whether by voice stress analysis or any other means. Read deeply at www.antipolygraph.org
It's about gaining confessions from gullible people. There is no real science involved. No lies are actually "detected".
Send lawyers, guns, and money. Dad, get me out of this.
I'm lucky enough to have been polygraphed, but not for having done something important. I was actually a guinea pig for police officers being trained to become polygraph operators. I am not sure if polygraphs are completely worthless or not, but I can guarantee that the way they're used is not as a "lie detection device" but more as an interrogation technique.
When they polygraphed me, they used some cheap magicians tricks. They had me choose a random card, then told me to say no for each card when they asked "is this your card?". Using the polygraph they claimed to know what card I had chosen -- but the way they set things up it seemed more like magicians tricks, than it did polygraph operation. They also showed me a wavy line with a spike afterward, claiming that the spike was when they detected me lying... but when I tried to get some more details they avoided the subject.
When it came for the real test, it ran mostly like what you see in the movies. After the test was done they thanked me for cooperating and then started trying to usher me out. I asked if I could see the results and they refused. Later on, I was told that a polygraph operator never shows their results to anybody, not even their partners.
I'm not sure if the machines are completely worthless, or if they can do something, but it certainly isn't a lie detector, it's more a "reaction sensor" if anything. I wouldn't be surprised if the cops get more out of watching someone's face, eyes, and posture than they do out of the device. It's just that the device has such fame from TV and movies that guilty people think it will catch them, making them more nervous (and presumably innocent people feel it will vindicate them, making them more relaxed).
The only think I learned from the experience is that police interrogators are good at getting confessions. That doesn't necessarily mean they're good at getting only guilty people to confess, however. If you ever get accused of something and a cop wants to question you, whether you're completely guilty or completely innocent, insist on a lawyer.
"Lie-detectors" are voodoo. Any informed court should tear a case based on those results to shreds. (Two weasel-words in there: informed and should.) I wonder how the insurance companies will hire trained and certified operators? Check for recent certs from the Cthurch of $cientology with E-meters?
My advice?
(a) refuse any such idiocy.
(b) if pressed, curl your toes on any tough question.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Classic ones:
1. Do you know why I stopped you?
2. We'll go easy on you if you just tell us what happened...
3. You don't ming if I look in your trunk, do you?
As far as the syllabus that you linked to, it looks like the classic "Did daddy touch you this way?" and then operator demonstrates with anatomically correct dolls. Kid goes "uh hunh."
The trick for adults is to shut the fuck up when a cop talks to them. Don't follow social rules about "filling silences" or "being nice". The cops are worse than telemarketers -- not only do they refuse to take "no" for an answer, they are frequently looking to arrest you for something. It's a lot worse than buying a subscription to a shitty magazine.
If questioned by a cop for anything you did not call them for (i.e. they are knocking and looking for you), here's the thing to do:
1. Say "I want to talk to my lawyer."
2. Shut your mouth.
3. Do not give them permission to do anything.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits