...clearly there are many people have been scammed by Monero (XMR) and have lost money, most notably those who bought on the initial pump up to about 0.00777, a price which has not been reached since, but also on later pumps.

When you create a coin, fuel that with deceptive and misleading statements, along with other spin and pumping from the lead dev and a crew of shills, the result is certainly going to be unsustainable pumps to high prices which cause investors to lose money.

The sad part is, you are still doing it.