I said somewhere on this site that I didn't like "hidden camera" TV shows. Let me amend that. I've never liked alleged comedy shows that play tricks on people. (Or which purport to play tricks on people. Some of them these days are obvious frauds where the supposed victim is clearly in on the gag and playing along. I'm not sure which is worse.)
I do like one kind of "hidden camera" show and I wish we had more of them. Those are the investigative reports that some TV news crews do, mostly in the area of consumer fraud. I know it's a stunt and I know most of 'em are hyped as far more dramatic than they are. Still, if some business is ripping off customers, I love the idea of them getting nailed like that…and of all businesses worrying a bit if the next person they cheat is an undercover TV reporter.
KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles has a reporter named Joel Grover who's doing some fine work in this area. As you can see in this report (and the follow-ups on the same page), they sent hidden cameras into nine Jiffy Lube stores in Southern California. In five out of the nine cases, they were charged for repairs that were simply and deliberately not performed. In another report (this one), they found out that many taxis in the Los Angeles area had their meters adjusted to charge more than the legal rate of $2.20 per mile. Grover and his crew caught the guy who configured a meter that way admitting that he did it and that it was illegal.
I wish TV did more of that. I also wish they aimed higher up. One thing that bothers me about some of these "investigations" is that, like many of the films for which Michael Moore became famous, there's a tendency to target the folks at the bottom of the corruption — the clerks, the security guards and so on. What impressed me about Grover's Jiffy Lube exposé was that he made it clear that it wasn't a couple of rogue servicepeople swindling the customers…it was almost Company Policy. Guess where I'm never taking my car for servicing.