I would agree, this sounds like the job is no longer there. While I tend to agree that the S was a bit naive in asking for a couple of weeks to make up his mind, the VP could have said something like “we need to know sooner”.
I don’t know what is going on, but having been in corporate America far too long, I have some guesses:
1)Sometimes people like someone, and will say things like “you have the job if you want it” when in reality, they may not have the authority, or in some cases, they are saying it because they don’t have the heart to say no, or there is no position. I don’t know if that applies in this case or not, but it is a possiblity
2)It could be that the VP really thought the job was there, but due to budgetary considerations, the position was closed, or other things like they found someone else, or they moved someone internally into the position.
3)It could be the VP saw the kid asking for a couple of weeks to make a decision as an insult (there are people like that), and especially if the S in question told him he had another offer, he may have been insulted. It shouldn’t be in the real world, but there are people who take these kind of things personally.
The fact that he is not returning the messages is not good, unfortunately these days, because employers generally have the upper hand, politeness has gone the way of the dodo bird, every time I hear some corporate type bemoaning how people don’t want to work the way they once want to, young people are rude (all the stories about kids coming into interviews dressed wrong, or looking at their cell phone, etc), I want to scream, because corporate behavior is a lot worse than it used to be. I have had job interviews (through a headhunter no less, who were doing a search for the company), where the interview seemed fine, they got positive feedback, then the headhunter literally heard nothing back, no courtesy even of a “I am sorry, in the end we went with someone else”. Given that people these days are a ‘resource’, not a person, not surprising the attitude.
I would try and call the guy to ask what is going on, but don’t be surprised if you get voice mail, or an admin telling you “I’ll pass on the message” and then hear nothing. You also can try calling the HR department and asking them to find out what is going on. The only leg S might have to stand on is if the VP talked about offering the job in e-mail, because it is written that could potentially be considered a legal job offer and if the VP is an officer of the company (which isn’t always true in all companies, VP’s are not necessarily officers), it might even have more weight (and note I say might, employment law is tricky, and I am not a lawyer, only from what i learned in grad school).
One lesson learned, oral committments these days mean absolutely nothing, managers and HR departments know that legally an oral committment means bupkus. Don’t ever act on a job offer until you have it in writing, it is exactly that, don’t ever quit another job until you have the offer letter, and the background check is finished, because even if you accept an offer, the job can disappear if the background check has something they don’t like. In your S’s case, he should have asked for the offer in writing and only then reject the other job offer (hopefully in writing as well).
One other suggestion, if the internship was gotten through his school, he might want to talk to the career center and ask them for advice on what to do, sometimes, especially if the internship was arranged through a school program, at the very least someone there might be able to call and get an answer for S, it is worth a shot.