Chamber says it did not endorse magnet advertising sold in its name

The Barnesville-Lamar County Chamber of Commerce strongly denies endorsing Universal AdCom which creates and distributes ‘Community Guides’. On Tuesday of last week, it was reported to the Chamber Office that the company has been using the Chamber of Commerce name and calling local businesses to sell advertisements for their ‘Community Guide Magnets.’The Chamber today pointed out that it is a member and local business promoting organization and does not make endorsements for those who are not either local businesses or are contributing to the Barnesville-Lamar County community by supporting it through the Chamber. Emily Rowland advises that if any other calls are received from Universal AdCom that use the Chamber of Commerce’s alleged endorsement as a sales tactic that the caller be directed back to the Chamber of Commerce to be corrected.According to the Chamber, it demanded a retraction from the AdCom endorsement, but received a negative response. Rowland stated, “A non-binding endorsement contract was entered upon several years ago, prior to the involvement of any current staff or Board Member’s involvement with the Barnesville-Lamar County Chamber. In lieu of such a retraction, we felt the need to publicly disavow their release to avoid any misunderstanding.” She added, “The BLCCC will not knowledgably endorse, enter into any endorsement contract, or give permission to any company that plans to target our valued Chamber Members for advertisement sales. If you are contacted, please know that it is not our policy to distribute any information about our members or other businesses in the community unless it is in a way to drive patrons to that business directly through our information center or our advertisements.”