Lesson learned. I guess the guy is just new in investing. ButI have a feeling this guy will still invest on HYIP even though he already got scammed.
It's the gambler's fallacy; believing that because you ran into loss, in the future you'll be winning. All HYIPs are scams sooner or later, and it just baffles the mind why some people are so keen on losing their money with these things when there are actually good and way more secure methods out there.