COEUR d'ALENE - In July of last year, CoiNuts was closed down during a property seizure by local authorities. Just weeks later, its owner, Kevin E. Mitchell, was auctioning gold and silver coins - at Coinshop.com.

The Press reported recently that CoiNuts allegedly swindled several dozen of its customers. Many claim to have lost tens of thousands of dollars, and some said they lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Mitchell has been accused of regularly failing to deliver on gold, silver and coins purchased by customers, and of writing bad checks for valuables customers sold to him.

Mitchell, 47, of Hayden Lake, was reached on his cell phone Friday but declined to comment about CoiNuts or Coinshop.com. There was no response to an email sent to the website.

Documents filed with the Idaho Secretary of State, however, show Mitchell listed as the president of Proof Coins Inc., which has an address of P.O. Box 128, in Post Falls, matching contact information for Coinshop.com.

The original address for Proof Coins was 296 W. Sunset Ave., just off U.S. 95 in Coeur d'Alene, which was the location of CoiNuts.

Proof Coins also is named in the user terms and conditions portion of the website. State documents show the corporation was reinstated Aug. 15, and listed in "goodstanding" status. It had been dissolved in 2009.

Additionally, Mitchell can be tied to Coinshop.com through popular social media sites.

Coinshop.com has a Twitter account under the name Myster Coinshop, and the first person Myster Coinshop is "following" is an individual under the name "K Mitchell," with the handle "@ceocoinshop." The Twitter account was viewed Friday night.

Twitter user K Mitchell only has one follower, Myster Coinshop. K Mitchell had not tweeted.

On the Coinshop.com Facebook page, multiple customers are complaining as recently as January and February that they haven't received orders.

A man identifying himself as a retired teacher from Jacksonville, Texas, wrote, "I have been waiting for three weeks on my order and I get no replies from my emails to them. I am very disappointed in these people and I suggest not doing business with them."

A Coinshop.com customer from Goodland, Kan., wrote, "Funny how they list certain items on my order as back-ordered, yet they are still listed for sale on their website!"

Another customer, who retired from GlaxoSmithKline and lives in Chambersburg, Penn., chimed in: "They appear to be a business in trouble and not able to meet their commitments."

The customer continued, "Local BBB (Better Business Bureau, in Coeur d'Alene-Spokane) says they are out of business, but you people commenting here and I know that their website is still up and running; collecting $$$ from innocent customers who will never receive the items they pay for. Beware!!"

Another customer, who said he lives in Rockland, Mass., wrote, "I wish I would have seen this before they got my money. No coins and no response to emails. These people are crooks."

Documents at the Secretary of State's website show Mitchell operating a limited liability company as far back as 1998 under the name Coinshop.com.

Kevin Wolter, owner of CoinsPlus in Spokane, told the Press Mitchell started Coinshop.com back in the 1990s. CoinsPlus isn't associated with CoiNuts, Kevin Mitchell, or Coinshop.com. Wolter knows Mitchell from coin shows, and Mitchell has been a customer at CoinsPlus.

Wolter estimated Mitchell has probably bounced hundreds of checks, based on conversations Wolter has had with former CoiNuts customers and employees over the years.

CoiNuts in Coeur d'Alene hasn't reopened since the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department seized property at the business in July. At that time, the department's civil division had received what's called a "post judgment writ," said Lt. Stu Miller.

"We did execute the writ per the court order," Miller said Friday. "The next day, the judge reversed his decision. So we gave it all back to (Mitchell)."