A CUSTOMER says a high-tech firm at Malvern Hills Science Park owes him money and cannot be contacted.

John Collins, of JC Sports in Shrewsbury, was a client of Retail Futures & Global Digital Training, a company specialising in selling over the Internet via www.worldofshopping.com and other websites. He said the firm had contracted to sell his replica football shirts through its sites. However, he has not been able to contact them for several weeks and says he is owed £1,100.

Calls to the company's Malvern phone number elicited only a taped message saying the office was currently closed.

The company's eight staff are understood to have been told without warning on February 26 that they were being made redundant.

Nigel Shaw, manager of Malvern Hills Science Park, confirmed that the company's offices appeared to be shut.

Unlike most firms at the science park, Retail Futures is not a spin-off from QinetiQ (formerly DERA). It moved there a few years ago from Ledbury.

In 2001, Retail Futures won the Internet Commerce Award for its site www.worldofshopping.com.

No one from the company was available for comment.