I don't think he really bilked many out of anything. One person paid for a computer for him. That was a couple of thousand back in the day. What he really did was lie about absolutely everything while insisting people behaved honorably and screaming like a petulant child if he determined they violated that honor code by doing something like shoot him down.
He had a spectacular photoshopped picture of him in the cockpit of his own P-51. He had another made up picture of the flight sim he was working on. Both helped put the rest of his "I can, and have, done it better than ICI." rants into perspective.
He was the 3 sigma version of the fliers from the day.