Do you remember the agent’s name?

@ thx10050


Do you remember the agent’s name who conducted your test? This sounds eerily familiar down to the Clinton quote.

Same experience just happend today. Its from the D.C. location and the polygraph examiner is a master of deception, acts nice and gets you all comfortable and bam he's in your face accusing of you feeding you "oh your not in the parameters, your failing, your categorized as a type b dishonest person blah blah blah" I have spoke the truth and nothing but the truth, why would I make it that far and risk by lying. I have the worste headache ever, haven't ate anything for 6 hours, and been interrogated afterwards. This is unfair and really hope there is a way for this to be resolved. It's like the examiner WANTS you to change an answer, but I stood my ground and guess he got pissed.

Horrible just horrible, why does it have to be like this? we want to serve our country but b4 that we have to be treated like a criminal..... something wrong with that picture? i think so. i will make an attemt to apply for the secret service but i first wanted to see what other people had to say about the test. i'm not mush of a nervous person but when getting slammed by a polygraph test i know dam well i will be nervous...anyway sorry for the people that did fail .. and question for thx10050, what other questions did they ask? how weird were they? i have been really curious about that ,thanks.

thx10050 wrote on Jul 21^st, 2006 at 2:07am:


Why can't thx10050 file a civil suit against the polygraphers and USSS?  IF everyone did that, maybe they'd spend more time in court answering for their schenagans than wasting taxpayers money?  Any lawyers out there?

Just an update, but I received my letter of rejection from the USSS today. It's fine with me: I'd already decided that it'd come down to either me rejecting them or they rejecting me.

I sent out two more applications to police departments in Indiana (five total so far). The state requires a polygraph as well, so if anyone's interested (and if I make it that far in the application process for any of the departments), I can post my experiences in that regard later on.

Thanks, guys, I appreciate the feedback. I still haven't heard back yet on the polygraph results, but in the meantime, I've applied to three local police departments in Indiana (where my fiancee lives currently) and will also be taking the NYPD police exam in October, as I said earlier. Hopefully, these other experiences won't be as negative as the USSS one was, especially since Indiana requires a polygraph as part of the hiring process. Only problem is, it appears later in the hiring process than you think it should be, thus making you potentially waste a lot of time and perhaps money with the earlier aspects of the hiring process.

I had a very similar experience a year ago with a USSS poly.  I was late to the interview because I was having difficulty finding the place; despite calling on my cell phone and asking for directions and letting them know I would be late, the examiner clearly had a bad attitude for the rest of the day.  He kept saying throughout the interview that he was having a hard time understanding why I would be late to such an important interview if I really cared about getting the job.   

The actual poly itself was just as you described.  Of course, after the poly was finished he left the room to "read the charts", which is a customary tactic.  He came back in, and just as in your case, told me I failed the drug question.  At the time I had never used an illegal drug in my life.

He kept saying over and over that he could only help me if I would "come clean", and I kept telling him that I had answered his questions fully and had nothing to add.  He even told me that my answers seemed "Clintonian", i.e. like the dodgy answers Bill Clinton used to give!  It seemed ironic to have a Secret Service agent speak so mockingly about a former President.

I openly told the examiner that I didn't believe in polygraph and that my prior experiences with it, combined with the reading I had done about it, had convinced me that there was no validity to the science of it.  This really seemed to bother him.   

I received my rejection letter not long after.

I have had other experiences applying for law enforcement positions, and most have been negative.  Despite being an excellent candidate for law enforcement employment, and despite having been offered one police job (which I turned down), the bulk of my application/interview experiences have been negative.  My experiences with the US Secret Service and the US Capitol Police rank pretty high on my list of lousy experiences in dealing with law enforcement agencies.

I have now abandoned my law enforcement ambitions in favor of other pursuits that pay more and don't employ such unsophisticated people and processes.

Best luck to you.

I'm sorry about what happened to you. I just failed my second FBI polygraph. I know exactly how you feel. I was accused of lying about my drug usage history as well. I have no drug usage history. It's the USSS loss not yours. Piss on them.

thx10050,

Its unfortunate that it takes a bad experience for people to see the light. And all the agencies now are telling candidates not to research polygraphy. But as a side little bit of humor, a majority are ....  Makes one think on just how much credit they give the process. I talked to 2 people recently in my travels and they give credit to this website for there current positions and beating the polygraph. They researched it because they were told not to.  Don't you just love it !! 

Regards ....

Thanks for the support, guys, it's appreciated. The whole affair was, as I said, depressing, shocking, and humiliating all rolled into one. It wasn't anything like I had been expecting. I'm half thinking I should have gone with my initial gut instinct, which was to tell them I was sorry for wasting their time and that clearly what they were looking for, in terms of me lying according to the machine, was showing up and therefore I should just go. If their job was to believe the machine, then their job is done: the machine's showing them reactions to questions that could be interpreted as lying.

But I didn't give up that easily, even though I'm not sure if that was the right decision to make for me, as a person. I'm sure it helps to look and be determined during such a process (which I was), but at the same time, I felt forced into that corner, felt like I had to tell them what I did to show them my character (again, virtually nothing of which had to do with their questions). It felt almost like a lose-lose situation and still does.

You're right, FBI-Reject: I may sound like a whiner, but it's a situation I won't easily forget. But I'll take it in and in the end, it'll make me a stronger person.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience.  I was in the same state of shock as you two years ago.  It gets better, but you still remain angry with such a system that is inherently biased against the most honest and those who care most about getting the job.

Its too bad experiences such as yours keep surfacing.  Good luck with your future endeavors.  I can tell by your post that you are an honest person and you will make it in law enforcement somewhere.

Dear thx10050.

This is the only place you can rant and have people understand your frustration.  It is wrong.  I cannot offer your any words of wisdom.  It hurts to have your life completely ripped apart by people who do not know you and they trust in a machine that has no validity.

I am sorry that yet another person has to lose sleep over this process.

You have lost confidence in the system.  The system has failed the taxpayer.  The polygraph hurts the faith and trust that should exist between the taxpayer and the government.

The insanity will hopefully stop in the future.  Just do not hold your breath for change.

Everyone refuses to believe that the Emporer has no clothes.  A few individuals do their best to yell above the din of the crowd but no one wants to hear them.

Sincerely,

Fair Chance.