"We didn't know this was coming,” says Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce President Bob McCoy. “We feel bad about it. I personally have some of these sitting at home. We have thousands of dollars sitting here at the chamber, so we're in the same boat.”
McCoy says his group is searching for a solution to replace the chamber gift certificates, now invalid, because the company backing them, Certifichecks, filed for bankruptcy.
"Five hundred chambers across the country were shocked and caught off guard that this company filed Chapter 7, which doesn't even mean a reconstruction, it means they're out of business,” says McCoy.
The chamber told more than 500 local retailers to stop accepting the gift certificates immediately. Retailers like Festival Foods, which says it sees at least one hundred gift certificates a week.
"It was just a shock to hear that something you see on an every day basis is just going to go away in an instant,” says Michael Siakpere of Festival Foods.
Festival Foods says most of its customers who have tried to use them have been understanding of the situation.
And the Chamber of Commerce hopes to bring back the gift certificates.
"The chamber will most likely implement a program that we own, we run, and it's banked locally, because the businesses like having that availability of money kept locally,” says McCoy.
Read full story [Gray Television]
