It is brain seed not paper seed.
When you say it is synced up... is it actually showing transaction history and just has a zero balance (all coins sent out)... or is it just showing a completely "blank" wallet with no transactions?
Also, for future reference... there is no such thing as a "public seed"... your seed is the most critical piece of data for securing your coins... it should remain 100% confidential and secret at all times!
I think he got it confused between a public / private key pair that's used to generate some wallets. But still, that is no reason for him to foolishly expose his word sequence online. No newbie is that dumb.