Yeah, it sucks, but that kind of thing happens soooo much in this sub-culture. It's almost like it's an accepted/common business plan or something! Guy starts small, gains momentum, starts earning trust, gets a lot of money flowing. Then, the inevitable (for so many anyway) he decides to cash out the business by taking a ton of orders and dissapears. I think the reason is that at that point a lot of guys look at the numbers and think, "Hey, I'm only making "X" percentage markup here, but if I took two months worth of orders with no cost to me I'd be sitting pretty for a long time...."
One guy, years back, was operating out of Spain and went belly up. By what I could gather through open internet communication alone he was grossing about $200,000 a month- and that was just by what was open and out on the boards- i.e. people who specifically said, "I ordered this, paid this..." etc. I think he took a couple months worth of orders and semi-retired! Remember, at 5.5% conservatively invested (or even in some savings and checking accounts if you hunt them down) $400,000 will bring in $22,000 a year in interest. Not that I'm condoning or encouraging this. Hell, I've lost a nice little chunk of my hard earned money over the years (none recently thank God). But, I think this is the thinking these guys have, if not a plan for this from the beginning- if they are business minded to begin with. Sucks, don't it?