OP I hope you learn your lesson.. $3k is a lot to spend for $100, and a lot of people on this forum would have to spend a lot of time accumulating that kind of money. However, I think in your case it was your greed scammed you. You need to take a different approach, think of it as a hobby - you will enjoy it more and learn more too.
Anyway, to expand on your theory. What is our entire system but one big scam pot? Everything we do takes a little bit of our limited time away from us. If you wanna break it down further; those at the top spend very little time to sustain themselves and their family, while those at the other end of the scale will always find it hard to make ends meet. The little people are being scammed for all of their time. While those at the top just do as they please on a daily basis. That is the system we live.
Dog eat dog!