Hundreds of local small business owners may have lost thousands of dollars, and they probably don't even know it---until now.

A Pierce County business owner contacted KIRO 7 to say he paid more than $1,000 for advertising that never materialized.

Now, Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy has uncovered the contracts of at least 259 Pierce and Thurston county business owners that show they each paid hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, to advertise in the South Sound Military Guide and Directory.

Denise Debely of Total Image Solutions says she paid $2,800 to advertise in the military guide, and so far has nothing to show for that investment.

Courtney Drennan, a Coldwell Banker Bain real estate agent, claims she’s out $3,200.

And Jian Locke, General Manager for the Guest House Inn and Suites in Dupont, estimates he’s lost $13,000 in trade.

These business owners and others claim they were told the military directory would be printed as long as two years ago. They were told it would look like other directories also printed by Advantage Publishing in San Diego.

The business owners say Advantage would be the first to print a joint directory for both Ft. Lewis Army Post and McChord Air Force Base, given to more than 50,000 military households, and handed out on the military installations.

Locke, the motel manager, says he jumped at the sales-pitch because his business is just across I-5 from Ft. Lewis.

"Since the book was going to the Air Force Base and Ft. Lewis, which is a great combination, we thought it was a great opportunity,” Locke told Clancy.

Kathleen Forrest, a Steilacoom-based attorney, agreed. “It would be like a military directory for people on Ft. Lewis, and so that is why I just, I paid it right away.” According to records obtained by KIRO 7, many other South Sound businesses also gave Advantage Publishing money up front.

Behind those successful sales pitches is former District Manager of Advantage Publishing, Andy Barber.

Barber told Clancy, “I started December of 2007. The goal was to sell at least $250,000 worth of advertising by June of 2008. I sold about 350 contracts with maybe about $200,000 in ad revenue.”

Barber says he and the rest of his sales staff collected a total of about $250,000. Enough, he says, to publish the directory. But now Barber and his customers are wondering, why hasn’t the directory been printed? And where’s the money?

Keith Kindler, Director of Sales and Marketing for Guest House/Comfort Inns, tells Clancy that money belongs to “the people that also signed contracts that didn’t get what they paid for.”

Andy Barber agreed to talk with KIRO 7, in part, to clear his name and steer any questions to the man who hired him.

"I think it boils down to reputation,” he tells Clancy. “I was the face of Advantage Publishing in Pierce and Thurston counties. Nobody knew anything about, really questioned, who is Tom Webster?”

Tom Webster is the owner of Advantage Publishing, a one-time San Diego-based company that earned an "F" rating there by the Better Business Bureau. Webster has since moved to Dupont, Washington.

When the publication date of the South Sound Military Guide and Directory kept getting pushed back, a number of advertisers tell Clancy they had questions for Webster and Advantage.

Debely says “they didn’t return any of my calls after a certain point, and I had no luck with the e-mails either.”

Elain Carroll, owner of Habitat for Your Sanity claims, “Not only did I get no return phone calls, but no one answered the phone. So that’s when I started thinking, 'uh-oh.'”

Scott Welsh, owner of Courtesy Auto Service and Tire tells Clancy he “wrote letters, made phone calls. No return phone calls, no answers on letters.”

So KIRO 7 Consumer Investigators went directly to Webster. Outside his home, Clancy told Webster she’d like to ask him some questions about the South Sound Military Guide. Webster said he had no comment.

Clancy: “It was supposed to come out two years ago. Where is the $250,000 Andy Barber says he collected on your behalf?”

Webster: “Thank you, have a good day.”

Clancy: “Where’s the money?”

That’s when Webster went into his garage and shut the door.

So Clancy took the contracts between Advantage Publishing and the 259 business owners to Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna. McKenna says he now has the same questions as Clancy and the business owners, especially after noting how much money is involved.

“There’s some big bucks here,” McKenna says.

Before KIRO 7 brought the situation to the AG's attention, not one of the at least 259 business owners had even filed a complaint, which McKenna says is the important first step if a consumer is to ever recoup any losses through his office.

“If we can prove that this person took the money and has not delivered the product, then we can file a lawsuit seeking to recover money from him,” McKenna tells Clancy.

But he says there is a simpler solution. Webster “can refund the money. Fairness would dictate that, not having delivered this product, he should have issued full refunds long before now,” McKenna says. At least one business owner, lawyer Kathleen Forrest, did get her money back from Tom Webster. Others tell Clancy, they asked for their money back a long time ago---- and received nothing.

The Attorney General won’t say whether he’s pursuing this investigation, but many of the small business owners who spoke with Clancy have now filed complaints with the AG’s office.

Meanwhile, Webster emailed Clancy to blame the delay on the economy. Webster says he will publish the directory by the end of 2009.

But even if he does, spokesmen from both Ft. Lewis and McChord tell Clancy, neither one has a relationship with Webster or Advantage Publishing. They say without that relationship, there is no way the guide will be distributed on the military installations as the advertisers claim they were promised.

Webster does get glowing reviews from the Tacoma Regional Convention and Visitor Bureau for which he has published two guides.

Click here to read the TRCVB’s statement on Webster.

Click here to read Tom Webster's statement.

To file a complaint with the Washington State Attorney General’s office, click here.