Mining is real and profits can be generated if you know what you are doing, however scammers take advantage of it by adding a twist to it, they promise you to obtain a lot of profits and hope the greed of the people to do the rest, and unfortunately as you have experimented by yourself the scam works and people lose their money, so I recommend to you that you stay away from any offer like that, and if you are genuinely interested in this market then you can invest in bitcoin and do your best to hold your coins.