Cleaning company leaves dirty trail

Owner bounces from state to state after businesses fail and customers, workers complain

When hundreds of Massachusetts consumers accused Ed Pero's cleaning companies of fraud in 2001, the Bay State's attorney general moved quickly to put him out of business.

Pero agreed to pay $120,000 in fines and stop operating in Massachusetts. State officials trumpeted the case as a victory for consumers and a just end for an unscrupulous contractor.

Pero, however, simply moved on to another state, just as he had done when he had previously been targeted by authorities in Missouri and New York. By the time he landed in the Lowcountry a year ago, the New York native had left behind a string of failed businesses and consumer complaints along the East Coast, authorities said.

Pero denied having any judgments, claims or disciplinary actions against him or his companies when he applied for a South Carolina contractor's license in December.

Based on inquiries from The Post and Courier, state labor officials are now investigating why Pero didn't list his past problems in other states, said Jim Knight, communications director for the South Carolina Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

"If he has indeed lied in response to these questions, the end result would be that he would lose his license and he would be issued a cease and desist order preventing him from ever doing business in South Carolina," Knight said.

During his stay here, Pero added two more casualties to his resume with the closures last month of Mount Pleasant-based Atlantic Air Restoration Services, an air duct cleaning business, and Envirokleen, a carpet cleaning company.

Pero left behind stunned workers who say they are owed thousands of dollars in back wages and customers who fear they have been stiffed on work and warranties they paid for.

Pero, 42, did not return calls last week from the The Post and Courier, and attempts to reach him through his ex-wife and former business partners failed. In an interview last month, he blamed the companies' troubles on a business associate and pledged to make sure everyone received the money and guarantees they are entitled to. People are still waiting.

Moving in the gray area

North Charleston police officer Eddie Bullard and his wife paid Atlantic Air $8,000 for air conditioning units for their home. They ended up with stripped units that didn't work. Pero promised to replace the units and then disappeared, leaving them with a pile of expensive junk, Bullard said.

Bullard isn't sure where to turn. Lawyers tell him his case has criminal implications, but fellow police officers suggest it's a matter best handled by the civil courts.

Pero has moved from state to state, opening up duct and carpet cleaning businesses that haul in cash and then shut down. Sometimes he serves as the owner and face of the business; other times he adopts the role of silent partner, keeping a hand in day-to-day operations while letting others front the companies, former workers said.

South Carolina doesn't license carpet and air duct cleaners, so it's up to the customers to do their own research on the qualifications and trustworthiness of the folks they hire.

Sixteen companies in the state have gone through testing and training to receive certification through the National Air Duct Cleaning Association. Neither Pero nor Atlantic Air is among them.

Pero drew business with full-page newspaper ads and mailers warning of the health dangers of mold and offering discount prices.

He had to get a contractors' license for Atlantic Air because the company performed repair work as well. He was asked on the application whether he or his companies had ever surrendered a license, been the subject of a cease and desist order for unauthorized practices or been the subject of judgements or claims within the past decade.

Pero, also a registered sex offender in two states, answered "no," and the state contractor's licensing board took him at his word, as it does all applicants.

Knight said the board doesn't have the resources to conduct full background checks, nor is it bound by law to do so.

So, as in previous cases, consumers didn't learn of Pero's past until his companies already were going belly-up.

In 2001, the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office received 204 complaints from customers who fell victim to advertising techniques used by two Pero businesses, Uni-Kleen International and New England's Finest Carpet Cleaners.

Investigators accused Pero of enticing customers with discount coupons and then using high-pressure sales tactics to sell them services at 10 to 20 times the advertised price, the attorney general's office said.

Coupons, for instance, offered duct cleaning services for $99.95, but the final bill would come to as much $3,000, authorities said. Most of the victims were elderly residents.

The Patriot Ledger of Quincy, Mass., looked deeper and found that Pero had problems in other states as well. In the late 1990s, consumers filed 130 complaints with Missouri authorities about bait-and-switch tactics used by another Pero cleaning business.

And in June 2000, he agreed to cease doing business in New York after the attorney general there confronted him with similar complaints about another cleaning business, The Patriot Ledger reported.

In 2002, Pero finally agreed to leave Massachusetts and pay restitution to customers who fell prey to his companies.

Heading south

Pero surfaced again in North Carolina as a partner in America's Home Best Services, a carpet and duct cleaning business that ran into legal trouble using misleading advertisements and bait-and-switch tactics, according to court papers.

In a sworn affidavit, a former office manager for the company said workers were told to target the elderly, the intoxicated and other vulnerable people in an efforts to boost sales for costly and unnecessary work.

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper shut down the company in 2006 and barred its manager, Timothy Pollard, from operating in cleaning or home repair businesses in the Tarheel State.

Reached by phone last week, Pollard laid the blame for the business' failure at Pero's doorstep. He said he met Pero in the early 1990s when they were involved in a Nashville cleaning company.

Pero later showed up in North Carolina and invested money and manpower in America's Best Home Cleaning, but his hard-selling tactics landed the company in hot water, Pollard said.

"I was doing fine there, and then he stuck me with the s--- end of the stick," he said.

Pollard said they parted ways for a few years, and then Pero convinced him to come work for Atlantic Air in Myrtle Beach. But when his paycheck bounced a couple of months ago, Pollard said he sensed another collapse was brewing and that he quickly quit. "I seen it coming and I got away from there," he said.

Others were not so lucky. Mike Mueller, a Columbia-based subcontractor who worked as a field supervisor for Atlantic Air, kept coming to work, hoping Pero would make good on his back wages. Mueller is now out $13,000.

Others also stayed the course and lost thousands of dollars; one worker is in danger of losing his home as a result, he said.

Other collateral damage has occurred to companies that share similar names as Pero's enterprises. James Daniels, owner of the unrelated Enviro Clean company in Summerville, said he has fielded about two dozen phones calls from angry EnviroKleen customers who assume he is to blame for their troubles. About half of the callers paid for work that was never done, he said.

Pero has insisted that he wasn't running Atlantic Air and EnviroKleen at the time of their collapse and that he had sold his interests in the companies. He said he was trying to help customers out of the goodness of his heart. "I'm just trying to do the right thing here," he told The Post and Courier last month.

His former workers, however, aren't buying his story. They hear he already has opened a similar business in Savannah and is trying to get a duct cleaning operation company in the Washington area.

One worker who still is owed money said Pero recently called and offered him a job in another state. The man refused.

"That's what Ed does," Pollard said. "He makes some money, and then he's gone."

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