MSNBC NEWS CORRESPONDENTS -- Pictured: Chris Hansen, "Dateline" Correspondent -- NBC Universal Photo: Virginia Sherwood

Chris Hansen (To Catch a Predator) has a new branding of his trademark hidden-camera investigations. The Hansen Files will explore all kinds of crooked activities including home repair scams that prey on the average consumer, but especially the elderly.

I have to say, speaking with Hansen couldn’t have come at a better time. Almost immediately after our conversation, a heater repair company was in my home giving me an estimate on a new furnace.

The cost of the work that was needed magically doubled in price after the representative added in all new heaters ducts (which weren’t problematic) and removal of asbestos (that didn’t exist). Fortunately, I had just learned how to protect myself and knew to say “no thank you” quickly.

And that is precisely what Hansen cautions consumers about on in his Dateline report.

“You have to do some diligence,” Hansen warns. “There are a lot of online data bases that can be used to check the background of people. The company we were dealing with had multiple complaints and a bad business rating with the Better Business Bureau.”

In fact, The Hansen Files will expose the scams prevalent in air duct cleaning companies tonight - and what he discovered while keeping tabs was downright criminal.

“The ads have this picture of a scary dust mite and all kinds of diseases that your family can get because your aid ducts are dirty. We had heard from the Better Business Bureau that sometimes these things are big, fat scams,” he points out. “We set up a hidden camera investigation in Cincinnati - a nice woman let us borrow her home. And, sure enough, they up-charge her first of all and then they didn’t do the work.”

Hansen, of course, invited the workers back to do more cleaning and that’s when he lowered the boom.

“I confronted them with the hidden camera evidence,” he recalls. “It turns out that this is happening all over the country. I mean, thousands and thousands of victims involving millions and millions of dollars. That’s pretty eye opening.”

Hansen admits that those confrontations can be unnerving, but he pushes through for the sake of the story…and the consumers…with a sizable security team tagging along.

“Yeah, there have been times when I’ve come face to face with folks, folks that were more muscular than I am and I thought, ‘This could go a couple of different ways,’ ” Hansen confesses. “But, anytime we’re doing it, where there is potential risk involved, it’s all reviewed by our security folks and I have security with me when I do these things whether it’s in Alaska or Alabama or Africa. You ratchet it up depending on the need.”

The Hansen Files debuts on Dateline: NBC tonight, 7:00 p.m. ET/PT.

Posted by Mari Cartel