Update on real time activities:

There is a listing of the 3 highest count token accounts on the OneCoin dashboard landing page. The top account had, as of Feb 1, over 185,000,000 tokens, which would yield over 46,000,000 tokens to just one account. At the rate that tokens have been adding to that account, the account holder will have over 250,000,000 tokens very soon, and continue to add tokens progressively.
Here is my epiphany:
185,000,000 tokens would cost in excess of 23,000,000 euros. There is not billionaire investing tens of millions of euros in OneCoin. So, who is this account holder then? How about the owner of OneCoin herself, Ruja Ignatova. This makes perfect sense and also reveals a potential scam of all scams. She has over 58,000 paying customers now, who have spent between 130 and 5000 euros for packages in OneCoin. That yields tens of millions of euros into her bank account from all those purchases. Now the scam part. She is buying from HERSELF tokens and tokens and more tokens out of those funds. She is simply transferring her own money onto her own bank account and claiming ownership of OneCoin tokens. Are you getting this?
Think about this again:
People buy OneCoin tokens with real money.
The funds from those purchases with real money goes to Ruja's bank account.
She then takes that real money and tells the OneCoin system that she is buying tokens.
She uses funds in her bank account to buy tokens which puts that money right back into her bank account............
She will end up owning 25% minimum, to an even larger percentage that is truly unlimited, of the 1.2 billion OneCoins to be mined.
Can you say MONOPOLIZE?
Oh, and don't forget that 100% of OneCoins are to be self mined. There will be no public mining. No open source. And I highly doubt these coins will ever go to a public exchange - only OneCoin's internal network exchange, where Ruja, and the other principals in the OneCoin organization, will pump and dump their coins on unsuspecting dupes who will buy into the hype and horseshit the marketing gurus in OneCoin are going to conjure up.
This is going to be an epic scam...............

By the way, they already have over 60,000 paid memberships. Their income from this scam could already exceed 40,000,000 euros. By the time they cash out on the coins, they might clear 100,000,000........... Talk about scammmmmmm

I have had a disturbing epiphany about something. Since my OneCoin account was hijacked away from me, I no longer can view the member dashboard information and will have to use projections based on what I have personally witnessed up until Feb 1.
There is a listing of the 3 highest count token accounts on the dashboard landing page. The top account had, as of Feb 1, over 185,000,000 tokens, which would yield over 46,000,000 coins to just one account. At the rate that tokens have been adding to that account, the account holder will have over 250,000,000 tokens very soon, and continue to add tokens progressively.
Here is my epiphany:
185,000,000 tokens would cost in excess of 23,000,000 euros. There is no billionaire investing tens of millions of euros in OneCoin. So, who is this account holder then? How about the owner of OneCoin herself, Ruja Ignatova. This makes perfect sense and also reveals a potential scam of all scams. She has over 58,000 paying customers now, who have spent between 130 and 5000 euros for packages in OneCoin. That yields tens of millions of euros into her bank account from all those purchases. Now the scam part. She is buying, from HERSELF, tokens out of those funds. She is simply transferring her own money onto her own bank account and claiming ownership of OneCoin tokens. Are you getting this?
Think about this again:
People buy OneCoin tokens with real money.
The funds from those purchases, real money, goes to Ruja's bank account.
She then takes that real money and tells the OneCoin system that she is buying tokens.
She uses funds, from those purchases, in her own bank account, to buy tokens, which puts that money right back into her own bank account............
She will end up owning 25% minimum, to an even larger percentage that is truly unlimited, of the 1.2 billion OneCoins to be mined. She could end up owning more than 50% of all OneCoin coins, with other principals in the OneCoin organization owning another large percentage of OneCoin coins as well.
Can you say MONOPOLIZE?
Oh, and don't forget that 100% of OneCoins are to be self mined. There will be no public mining. No open source. And I highly doubt these coins will ever go to a public exchange - OneCoin coins will only be available in OneCoin's internal network exchange, where Ruja, and the other principals in the OneCoin organization, will pump and dump their coins on unsuspecting dupes who will buy into the hype and horseshit marketing that the MLM gurus in OneCoin are going to conjure up.
By the way - I have not even mentioned the fact that she started this whole operation with nothing but air as a product. An idea. This entire organization is built on an MLM platform of selling an idea and making money through selling that same idea to your family and friends and getting them to sell the idea to their circle of influence and so on... The principals in OneCoin are getting very wealthy, with a probable 50 million euros in sales already, from selling air to dupes. Then they will be getting their final cash influx when they sell their stash of "coins" that they bought with the dupes' money. This small group of people at the top of OneCoin could be spiltting 100,000,000 euros when this is all said and done. And OneCoin coin value will end up being ZERO. Pure GENIUS!!!!
This could be an EPIC scam...............

Thank you for the great advice.

homo homini lupis thank you for really caring enough to put together a great "watch out for" list. Very informative.

"Start what? What's your goal? Are you looking for best investment? Do you want to start mining? Trading? Or have you already decided you want to invest in altcoin but you don't know which one?"

I'm not looking to invest in mining yet. I do want to invest in coin, and not necessarily altcoin, although I have been hearing from people that altcoin is better right now. You're right that I need better education. That is step one I guess. I just want to start in on an income stream on the side that won't take 10 hours a day to babysit and won't take $10,000 worth of equipment to get into.

Update on OneCoin mining: In 9 days they have premined 2,270,000 coins with 52,000 members.

Thanks for the comments.

Followup on mining: Should mining accelerate or get slower with time? I thought the algorithm was supposed to increase difficulty and thus slow the mining process, or only reward the super-computer miners. Can a coin generate 5,000 to 10,000 coins every 10 minutes? That seems obscene.

More basic advice for this dummie: Where should I be looking to start today?

The article in question is from an MLM review site. They only look at whether the MLM model is sound or not. Your conspiracy theory brain is not very logical in suggesting that this MLM reviewer is on the dole of a rival coin. Rival coins must have lots of money to be able to pay off the entire universe....

I will not try to talk the jargon and attempt to pretend like I know anything.
That being said, guys like me that have virtually zero clue about the vast landscape of cryptocurrency are the ones making most of the mistakes and bad investment choices.
What I am looking for is a dumbed down real discussion that lays out the pitfalls. What are the real warning signs.
Alt coins. What are the dead giveaways that an alt coin is a scam coin or a pump and dump scheme.
Positive hype is everywhere and I could not care less about someone's enthusiastic blather. I would much rather know about the failures. The scams. How to look at coins armed with the basic knowledge of warning signs.

I am currently looking at and referring to a specific: OneCoin at www.onecoin.eu
As a newbie, I am drawn in by the ability to make money out of the gate due to the MLM structure.
MLM's inherently have a dark side built in however. I want to gain knowledge pertaining to coin when an alt coin is trying to get started and uses MLM tactics to gain members/investors.

What is the downside of pre-mining? OneCoin has just started their closed source mining on Jan 20 and has already mined 550,000 of their own coins. They claim that this mining internal of their own network is only a way to make it "fair" for the network. They plan to mine the majority of their own coins prior to going public and are still not in an exchange.

Bottom line question: What is the best way for newbies to cut their teeth in cryptocurrency?

What I do know:

In the past 4 weeks OneCoin membership. Has gone from 5,000 to >50,000.
Membership in the USA is limited, if nearly nonexistent.
It is an MLM model, and money is being made on the MLM activity of OneCoin.
Cost of membership is from 130 Euros to 5,000 Euros.
130 Euro package awards 1,000 tokens, 5,000 Euro package awards 60,000 tokens.
Tokens are valued at 0.115 Euros.
There has been one token split 2 weeks ago.
Mining began January 20, 2015.
As of today, 220,000 coins have been mined.
(Edit Jan 28 - 550,000 coins mined. Seems mining is rather rapid...)
OneCoin is closed source.
OneCoin is not on an exchange.
I believe mining ease is 1 coin/ 5 tokens.
I believe OneCoin is based out of Bulgaria.
I believe Nigel Allen, a principal in OneCoin, has a shady past, along with some other principal players.

What I don't know:

Is this considered pre-mining?
What does it mean in general as far as legitimacy etc if this is pre-mining?
How can tokens be assigned a value if it is not public or on an exchange?
Once OneCoin does go public, can it be viable as a bitcoin cryptocurrency?

I have also found out that OneCoin has a new policy that in the event of another token split, they will apply the split retroactively. In other words, even if you have used all your tokens for mining already, your previous tokens will be doubled and automatically added into your account. Sounds wrong to me...

Over all question: Is OneCoin a scamcoin?