Well-said, and precisely what I was thinking after having read the two posts on the freeadvice forums. The writing style seems different enough that it's probably not Joe (though I wouldn't put it past him to manufacture such).

If it truly is his mother, she's clearly an enabler. All she cares about doing in the Celica-related posts is getting the car back, not seeing to it that her son is in the right; she knows that they did tons of work on the car, but she doesn't want to pay for it -- just like Joe. She knows he's done wrong. All she cares about doing in the laptop-related post is making sure her son doesn't get thrown in jail, not seeing to it that her son makes it right. Again, she knows he's done wrong, but she just tries to protect the scamster.

Quite sad. I've lost my sympathy for the family. Enablers, all.