In general, people perform very mediocre when faced with the challenge of detecting deceit. It is therefore understandable that people have searched for tools that might improve our truth finding. One of these tools, which was developed by a former polygraph examiner, is the Scientific Content Analysis (SCAN). Thirty years after its introduction, this method is widely used by both public and private organisations. However, this broad application calls for the rather urgent question as to whether SCAN is actually a reliably and accurate tool. On the basis of scientific literature we evaluated SCAN on its diagnostic merits. Our conclusions are straightforward; SCAN does not meet the requirements to be used as diagnostic tool for detecting deception. The defects are too substantial and the use of SCAN does not encourage a more objective analysis of statements.