OOH! Ouch! Poor poor poor POOR Bettas! Ha, the little boy should join Aqua. Advi. so that we can let him know of his egregious error.
Granted, there are some people who shouldn't have fish - don't like animals, aren't responsible, etc. But the very fact that the people here who aren't as educated ARE HERE says something for them! It means they're at least trying to learn, and soon they'll love the hobby - and know a plethora of piscean facts - like us.
BTW, my first tank (age around 7) was a 20 gallon with 5 goldfish (all around 2 inches long) and a turtle (she had another tank too but I usually kept her with the fish; she was only about 3-4 inches long). It also had "live" (read: dying) plants, no light or filtration, and the tank definitely wasn't cycled (no dechlorinated tap water, but we lived abroad, and oversees tap water isn't quite the same - doctors gave the family flouride pills to compensate for lack of "healthy" additives in water). My mother helped set it up - little kid can't lug around a 20
gal glass tank - but it's my fault. She doesn't even like animals that much - I'm the animal freak! Since then, I've obviously come a long way, even though I've only been "re-keeping" fish for a couple of years now. I DID my research this time - studied it for months before I "took the plunge" (in reality I couldn't afford it, so the next best thing to owning one is reading everything you can get your hands on first, which proved to be a very wise move indeed).
So. In conclusion, I think we should welcome those poor unfortunate souls who had the sense to come to us before all their fishies died. We were all there once too.