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GREENSBORO — A paving contractor accused last year of deceiving local residents into expensive driveway projects has re-emerged using similar techniques in Myrtle Beach, officials there say.

Tommy Edward Clack, 37, who operated the driveway paving business, Guilford County Paving, is again accused of deceiving elderly residents into paying high prices for low quality work and not properly giving them the right to cancel their contracts.

Kathy Graham, president of the Better Business Bureau of Coastal Carolina said she has been collecting data on Clack since at least last fall, and complaints from the Myrtle Beach area have soared throughout the summer.

“The scheme is targeting the elderly — mostly retired people and some middle-aged people,” Graham said. “I’m getting calls from people saying their elderly mother was pressured into signing a contract and as soon as they sign, his trucks are in their driveway.”

On multiple occasions, Clack has been accused of telling customers he was working in their neighborhood and had extra asphalt he needed to dispose of and promised deep discounts, according to the N.C. Attorney General’s Office.

In November, after complaints from residents in the Triad and in the Wilmington area stemming since 2007, the attorney general’s office obtained a court order barring Clack from starting any paving job until at least four days after a contract was signed. The move came after 15 complaints of customers in the Triad reporting losses from $3,000 to $40,000 last summer.

Laws in both states allow consumers a three-day right to cancel on certain contracts.

Shortly after the November court order was signed, residents in the Myrtle Beach area began reporting Clack had moved there and was working under the name Horry County Asphalt, Graham said.

She said the multiple cases she has received have involved residents reporting losses from $500 to $30,000 for paving jobs with Clack’s company.

Graham said she is working with South Carolina’s licensing board for contractors to obtain a cease-and-desist order against Clack. The state’s judicial solicitor’s office is looking into him as well, she said.

Suzanne Belden of North Myrtle Beach said Clack approached her last week offering to pave her driveway for more than $23,000, but she was able to get his workers to stop before the work began.

She said Clack told her he had extra paving material from a job that got canceled and used the name of a reputable paving company in the area — both methods he was accused of using in the Triad to gain customer trust.

“We were able to make some calls and unravel his lies,” Belden said. “He was dropping names of people all over Myrtle Beach who he knew.”

A cell phone Clack was using while in the Triad has been disconnected and he could not be reached for comment.

He told The Sun News, the newspaper in Myrtle Beach, that his business is reputable.

“We are not the same business we were in North Carolina,” Clack told the newspaper last week.

“What happened two years ago, you can’t continue to use against us. We’re not a criminal enterprise.”

Clack has been convicted of 26 misdemeanors in North Carolina for not adhering to the state’s three-day right-to-cancel law. He has also has been arrested in Florida on charges related to fraudulent practices involving elderly victims.

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