KOOL Collectables, the York store and mail order business favoured by collectors of miniature military figures, Pokemon, replica guns and other paraphernalia, has closed suddenly.

The store's website states that the organisation's shop in Goodramgate has closed and redirects customers to its registered offices and warehouse in Kathryn Avenue, Huntington, near the Monks Cross Shopping Park.

The Goodramgate shop's phone line has also been redirected there. But when the Evening Press called at the two-storey Kathryn Avenue building on the Pigeoncote industrial estate, it was locked up and shuttered from view with blinds.

A notice on the door reads: "Kool Collectables no longer operates from these premises. (NB we do not have a forwarding address)."

Staff at the neighbouring building, occupied by chartered accountants Smart & Cook, reported that the Kool Collectables warehouse closed at least two months ago.

Clerk Angela Bradley-Wells said: "Ever since, people have been regularly coming into our reception area to inquire what has happened to the firm. Some said that they had paid for orders but had not received them."

Other "puzzled and angry" customers have approached Katherine Hague, manager of the nearby Monks Cross Shopping Park, for help. She said: "One of them emailed me from the U.S. saying they had paid for goods over the internet, but I innocently directed them to the Goodramgate store.

Sandra Garwood, from Loughton, Essex, who ordered two toy soldiers at £40 each, said: "We've paid the money but received nothing. We've persistently tried to contact the company but without success."

A York printer, who did not want to be named, said he was owed a four-figure sum for printing the firm's brochures. Now he was consulting his solicitor.

Elizabeth Levett, manager of York Trading Standards, said she had received 13 inquiries from customers of Kool Collectables. Two or three had lost money, but the remainder found that payment had not been taken from their credit accounts. She was advising those who had paid out more than £100 on a card to make claims against their credit card company under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. But unsecured creditors were likely to have lost out. She said: "Fortunately, while the website still exists, a freeze has been put on internet payment so that purchases are no longer possible."

Kool Collectable's director, Eileen Reid, 35, is listed by Companies House as living in Moor Lane, Woodthorpe, York, but the luxury executive home is now being rented by Zimbabwean Alan Leadbeater and his family. "We keep getting her letters and mark them return to sender," he said.

Landlord of the house, Jiwan Sagar, said he believed that Ms Reid and her children had suddenly returned to the U.S. after giving him notice that they would be vacating the house last August. No money was owed in rent or power bills.

Updated: 09:42 Monday, January 13, 2003