This story is setting off some alarm bells for me so I'd be wary of forking over anything more than advice right now.
Incidentally, when gmail was first released back in 2004(?), Tree dug in and reverse engineered a basic version of it in a couple of weeks. That was before libraries like Prototype were available. His Javascript skills are formidable.
Never, never try and stop people from trying to do good. I would rather be scammed than be complacent.
I'd never knowingly try to stop someone from doing good, but by the same token, warning that this might be a scam is prudent.