news-record.com

The N.C. Attorney General’s Office is taking legal action against a Greensboro man accused of deceiving elderly residents into paying thousands of dollars to have their driveways paved.

It’s the latest in a series of court battles between the state Attorney General’s Office and Tommy Edward Clack, 37, the owner of Guilford County Paving, which is also known as Guilford County Asphalt.

State officials say Clack targets senior citizens — rushing them into contracts, charging them high prices and performing low-quality work. Customers say they have been left with potholes and cracked driveways.

George Jenkins, 84, of Liberty, said Clack paved his driveway and then tried to charge him more than $100,000. Jenkins paid $40,000.

“Everybody says I shouldn’t have paid him a penny,” he said. “This is the worst bind I have been in my entire life. I am trying to work with my credit card company ... paying them a little until I can get it paid off.”

The Attorney General’s Office has received six written complaints about Clack from residents and a business in the Triad from December through August.

“People are saying he is telling them they have three days to cancel, but going ahead and starting the work before the three-day waiting period,” said Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General’s Office.

Complaints stem from Forsyth, Randolph, Rocking-ham and Stokes counties. Other residents in Guilford County contacted the News & Record with complaints about Clack’s business and are working to file paperwork with the state.

Clack has a history of telling customers he has extra paving material and can repave their driveways at a deep discount while operating New Hanover County Paving in the Wilmington area, according to the Attorney General’s Office.

The state took Clack to court in 2007 for a series of repaving jobs that “regularly targeted seniors with the average age of 74, charging them high prices but performing low-quality work,” according to a complaint.

Clack pled guilty to 26 misdemeanors for not abiding by state law that, in certain circumstances, gives customers three days to cancel a purchase.

A judgment in the case, which was finalized in Wake County Superior Court in March, ordered Clack to fix shoddy work, pay the state $50,000 and notify future customers of their cancellation rights.

He also was required to fix the paving of anyone who filed a consumer complaint against him through June.

Now, the state is taking action again after receiving complaints that Clack is taking advantage of customers, this time in the Triad.

In September, the Attorney General’s Office asked the court to enforce an injunction requiring Clack to wait four days, rather than three days, before starting any paving jobs and to repay an elderly Kernersville woman $3,000.

Clack says he operates a legitimate business and feels he is being unfairly targeted.

“This is a broken record, the same song that’s been going on for two years now,” Clack said. “If you go out and ask someone if they want their driveway paved, they say yes and we do the work. I think I am the only person in North Carolina they have enforced this law against.”

In the state’s latest action, a 76-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified in this story, said she was outside her Kernersville home when Clack approached in a Guilford County Asphalt truck.

She was told he had just completed a job nearby, had extra asphalt and wanted to repave her driveway at a large discount, according to a written complaint filed with the Attorney General’s Office.

She said Clack quoted her $13,000 for the job, and she said she would need to speak with her two sons before allowing him to begin work.

“While I was on the telephone, three trucks and several men appeared and was working on my driveway. I asked Tommy (Clack) to tell them to stop, but he would not,” the complaint states.

The woman said one of her sons told Clack to stop as well, but he continued anyway. They finally settled on a payment of $3,000, with the promise he would return to fix any problems that might arise, the complaint states.

Three weeks later, the driveway began cracking and the woman couldn’t reach Clack on the phone. A man eventually showed up on his behalf and wanted $2,000 to fix the work, dropping the price each time he was told no, the complaint states. “I repeated that I was not going to paying him anything and that Tommy (Clack) had been paid to do the job,” she said.

She wasn’t the only customer who said Clack continued paving after being told to stop.

Jenkins of Liberty said the same thing happened to him after Clack approached his home unsolicited in early May.

“He said he had three loads of asphalt he needed to get rid of that evening, but I told him I needed to put that money into having my pool built,” Jenkins said in an interview. “He said he would work with me. He put three loads of blacktop on my driveway. He was supposed to pave only 50 feet of it. I told him to stop.”

Jenkins said Clack again said he “would work with him” and blacktopped the rest of it.

Two weeks later, Jenkins said Clack came back to his home asking $180,000 for the work, but he dropped the price when Jenkins kept telling him no.

“I ended up giving him $40,000 to shut his mouth,” said Jenkins, who later found out from authorities that he may have been taken advantage of.

According to contracts filed in each complaint with the Attorney General’s Office, Clack’s contracts do state that the customer has three days to cancel the transaction. But each time, customers said, Clack began the work almost immediately.

The contracts also include a notice of cancellation, which has misspellings and references the right to cancel purchases made at an antiques show, but makes no reference to driveway paving.

According to the Better Business Bureau, Clack is listed as the principal agent for companies that include Guilford County Paving, Guilford Paving, Guil-Rand Paving, Randolph County Paving and Randolph Paving Company, all of which show unsatisfactory records based on consumer complaints.

When reached by phone, Clack said the state’s order against him is “not worth the paper it is written on.”
“If there was a crime against it, I would be in jail,” Clack said. “I don’t collect money until I’m finished and my customers are happy. If they didn’t want their driveway paved, they wouldn’t allow you to pave it.”

In light of the state’s order, Clack said he will no longer solicit door-to-door.

Talley said Clack’s attorney asked the court to withdraw the state’s order and said his client would sign an order of consent that would “mandate that he wait until the fourth day after the execution of the contract before performing any work.”

“That would prevent him from paving quickly, grabbing the money and then leaving, his usual tactic,” Talley wrote in an e-mail.
If that doesn’t happen, she said the Attorney General’s Office will take additional legal action against Clack.

Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7077 or ryan.seals@news-record.com