Buying Altcoin and Bitcoin certainly has the opportunity to lose, this has happened since Bitcoin is present at Exchange, there is always an opportunity to lose money, especially since the current market conditions are increasingly difficult and the number of scam projects that add to the image of cryptocurrencies is getting worse.
I doubt there is more alts scam when the market is being like this. I mean you have to realize there are now new flow of money and investors. No enough to keep the old alts running hence price keep going down across all coins.