Begging your pardon, but I do not think that is an overstatement. There are many people who lost millions of dollars with Bernie, some of whose lives were indeed shattered. My sister in Florida does know a family who were multimillionaires; three generations who owned several businesses in NYC. They were honest people who made it big. They lost, essentially, everything and had to now start from the beginning and go back to work. They sold their houses, etc.
Yes...they were stupid (and arguably greedy seeing Bernie's phony numbers), but they did nothing illegal and lost the family fortune. They might have been the extreme, but plenty of people and institutions lost billions. Click here for the list.