This is why due diligence is so important. Sure there is money to be made off these shit projects during fomo bull runs, but when the market slows down, you want to be left holding something you believe in.
This is why investors need to do their homework: whitepaper, team, community, github, etcetera.
The thing these two coins you mention have in common is that hype beast style marketing. If the coin you are in is spending all the money on marketing then that may be a tell tale sign that something is up.
Verge are especially tricky as they were able to convince so many people they are a legitimate privacy coin. They used widely known (to the general public) privacy techniques and this made people confident in what they were buying. When people point out the flaws and show them true privacy coins (for example monero or zcoin) they label it fud. Not understanding ring signatures, zerocoin protocol, and so on.
I feel bad to the bag holders only to a certain degree. Noone made them buy these bags and not do the amount of homework they truly need to in this wild west market. I hope they learn from their mistakes.