Coin Theft

[+Colorado Cacher]

Last week I was on a business trip in WI and MN. While there I left 3 AJAYHAWKFAN coins in caches. 2 coins have already been taken from the cache but not logged. (The other one my be missing as well but I have not received an email from anyone saying it is missing.) I have had others go missing as well but 2 out of 3 within only a few days is VERY discouraging. Some LOSER has it in their collection and I would have been happy for the LOSER to have the coin if the LOSER only logged it.

 

Like I have said many times before,"this is why I copy my coins." Some people simply (not specifically cachers) can not, nor will they ever be able to respect other people. Until they learn to I will be glad to only share an icon with fellow cachers.

[+UOTrackers]

I know I probably shouldn't be surprised, but in April our family made a trip to St. Louis, while there we decided to create 3 racer TB's out of USA geocoins. We knew that people liked to pick up and keep coins so we decided we'd make it a bit hard. We bought an enamel kit and some shrinky dinks. With the shrinky dinks we made goal cards. We poured the enamel into 3 containers and let them dry and harden over night, then we put in the goal cards and the coins and layered more enamel on them. When they were dry, they were very hard. We released them with a goal to race each other home before October. Mama's and Dada's racers have been moving every so often, but Baby's racer has had quite a bit of problems. Today I read the logs of the last cache it was in and it's missing. The only thing that surprises me, is that it is blatantly obvious that this coin belongs to a BABY! Who takes something from a baby?

 

Below is Mama's racer with the goal card showing. Baby's is identical except the goal card has just her picture on it.

 

[+Lemon Fresh Dog]

You know. People are greedy and people are sad.

 

However, I honestly believe that this is the MINORITY of people. I think that for every 50 great cachers that move, enjoy, and otherwise play the game correctly -- there is ONE that is a thief, a fool, a %%^)%)@!.

 

Sadly, the ONE ruins it. This is not new to geocaching. A coin goes missing when ONE cacher steals it. It requires DOZENS of cachers to move it along. So let's all celebrate the many and pity the few! (last part was said in my best Mr.T voice)

[+pa/ma from arkansas]

I was reading about the Coin Theft. I recently found a coin in a cache and it was not the actual coin. The owner had Printed out a colored picture of the coin, pasted it to cardboard, and laminated it. I thought this was a good idea. You still get to keep your coin. The other cachers still get the pleasure of finding a coin. And the coin gets moved around without fear of someone keeping it. I thought this was a cool idea.

[+WWC-World's Worst Cacher]

You know. People are greedy and people are sad.

 

However, I honestly believe that this is the MINORITY of people. I think that for every 50 great cachers that move, enjoy, and otherwise play the game correctly -- there is ONE that is a thief, a fool, a %%^)%)@!.

 

Sadly, the ONE ruins it. This is not new to geocaching. A coin goes missing when ONE cacher steals it. It requires DOZENS of cachers to move it along. So let's all celebrate the many and pity the few! (last part was said in my best Mr.T voice)

 

I agree that most cachers are honest and do the right thing with coins. I recently put out a cache with a bunch of unactivated coins (like a dozen). My request was that people trade not necessarily even, but just decent. All of the logs seem to indicate that if anything, people are trading better than you would expect. This is a very easy to get to urban cache. With the biggest problem being lots of muggles.

 

I have always anticipated that in one or two months the coins will be gone and it will have more traditional stuff in it.

 

So there is reason to be positive about this.

[ParentsofSAM]

Well not one of our coins but a coin named for us and in one of our caches was recently taken.......

 

what the local cacher does not know is that I work at the store where the cache was located and that a camera points at the parking lot and right at the cache spot.

 

I went through the tapes of the cache spot and I know EXACTLY who took the coin. They have had plenty of time to long and move the coin along.....I believe they intend to keep it.

 

What to do.....what to do.....

 

Edited July 24, 2006 by ParentsofSAM

[+ajayhawkfan]

Well not one of our coins but a coin named for us and in one of our caches was recently taken.......

 

what the local cacher does not know is that I work at the store where the cache was located and that a camera points at the parking lot and right at the cache spot.

 

I went through the tapes of the cache spot and I know EXACTLY who took the coin. They have had plenty of time to long and move the coin along.....I believe they intend to keep it.

 

What to do.....what to do.....

 

:)

Write them a "reminder" to log the coin and see what happens.

[+Lemon Fresh Dog]

I was reading about the Coin Theft. I recently found a coin in a cache and it was not the actual coin. The owner had Printed out a colored picture of the coin, pasted it to cardboard, and laminated it. I thought this was a good idea. You still get to keep your coin. The other cachers still get the pleasure of finding a coin. And the coin gets moved around without fear of someone keeping it. I thought this was a cool idea.

 

I'm okay with this method -- however, there has been much discussion on it and some folks are less accepting of the practice.

 

To try and make everyone happy, if I did this - I would indicate in the coin name that it was a COPY of XYZ coin. That means when it shows up on the cache listings, it will display a coin icon, but the name will clearly indicate it is a copy.

 

Ultimately though, I doubt I would ever do this. For me, the thrill is to leave and watch a real coin travel. So I deface them a little and enjoy them when/while they travel. In the end, I have decided against releasing coins as travellers that I care about. I know that they have a theft factor that far exceeds a traditional travel bug. When I release a travelling coin, I assume about 10 hops before theft. Sometimes I am disapointed, sometimes I am happy.

[+Team Webguy]

Coin theft seems to have started becoming more and more common here in Australia. Which is a pity because we like to see the different coins. We rectly had an event and one of the attendees had about 10-12 coins of her own which she was slowly launching as she went around, it was my first opportunity it see so many different coins up close.

 

Our kids love to see them as well. I have one coin which remains unactivated, and will remain so as it was gifted to me, so it aint leaving my drawer.

 

There is supposed to be a coin in one of my newer caches, 3 logs since it went in and nobody has mentioned a coin being in there. Not the easiest of caches to get to either, but I guess, like anything, if they want it bad enough, they will do whatever it takes to get it. I just feel bad it may have gone missing from one of my caches.

 

I'm kind of over the whole TB thing, we have had too many go missing from caches so won't bother to buy anymore of those. Always happy to move other TB's along, and love reading about our remaining TB's in the wild.

[avroair]

Feel good story!

 

Well I thought my Maryland coin I released in Hawaii in October 2005 was gone for good. The person who took it logged it out of a cache and deleted the log entry and since I get alot of those day I read and deleted it, thinking nothing of it... so my coin had been forgotten and missing for 10 months.

 

Well they just contacted me and apologized for taking and keeping the coin and are releasing it out again during their travels around the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. I let them virtually log the coin into and and out of caches as they go since some people enjoy that.

 

I am just very happy one of the first coins I ever bought is back in cache to cache circulation.

[+ajayhawkfan]

Feel good story!

 

Well I thought my Maryland coin I released in Hawaii in October 2005 was gone for good. The person who took it logged it out of a cache and deleted the log entry and since I get alot of those day I read and deleted it, thinking nothing of it... so my coin had been forgotten and missing for 10 months.

 

Well they just contacted me and apologized for taking and keeping the coin and are releasing it out again during their travels around the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. I let them virtually log the coin into and and out of caches as they go since some people enjoy that.

 

I am just very happy one of the first coins I ever bought is back in cache to cache circulation.

I would like to be able to tell that story about some of my coins!!! I'm happy for you!

[+onesearching2find]

Even though it has not been moving much one of the coins that you (AJAYHAWKFAN) released in WI is still active in a cache of mine. The cache is a 50 part multi (with each stage able to be logged individually). Several people have found the cache, but your coin is still in it because I had many activated and unactivated coins in it to chose from, plus a lot of other good swag. I have 12 coins in the wild and so far they are all accounted for. When I placed the caches in this series I put a voucher in each cache for a new personal geocoin that I had made. I did that because the coins were not yet finished. It has worked out well though because I intended for 50 different people to get a coin, with the vouchers they have to contact me to get the coin so no one person could obtain more than a single coin. It will be great to see the new coins traveling! So far only a few have been distributed so I am still waiting to see one in the wild. I am sure someone will grab your coin soon and it will be moving about again. Thanks for placing them in the wild to be shared with others!!

[+chaosmanor]

Feel good story!

 

Well I thought my Maryland coin I released in Hawaii in October 2005 was gone for good. The person who took it logged it out of a cache and deleted the log entry and since I get alot of those day I read and deleted it, thinking nothing of it... so my coin had been forgotten and missing for 10 months.

 

Well they just contacted me and apologized for taking and keeping the coin and are releasing it out again during their travels around the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. I let them virtually log the coin into and and out of caches as they go since some people enjoy that.

 

I am just very happy one of the first coins I ever bought is back in cache to cache circulation.

I would like to be able to tell that story about some of my coins!!! I'm happy for you!

We have a Travel Bug which didn't move for more than two years An e-mail to the person who had mentioned taking it went unanswered. I tend not to worry about our Bugs and coins that much, so I didn't follow up on it. Suddenly, out of the blue, I got an e-mail, apologizing for the delay. There was a move in there, and lots of boxes with the wrong stuff in them (based on the labels), and so on and so forth; if you've ever moved, you know how it goes I wrote back and thanked them for writing and said not to worry, take your time, etc. A couple of weeks later, they dropped it into a cache, and it got picked up a day or two later. In the six months since, it's been moving quite nicely So, never give up hope; sometimes even things buried in one of the graveyards rise again.

[+AndrewandSarah]

We're relatively new cachers and just discovered the joy of finding a coin in a cache. What made it fun for us is that we didn't know the coin was going to be there. What about making it harder for people to just surf through the proximity listings to see where coins are? If you removed the icons so that people aren't able to just look for caches with coins in them to steal maybe they wouldn't get stolen so often because you would only come across coins by accident. Or, you could just make it so only site members can see if there's a coin in a cache. We're not site members yet but it seems like it might help the situation.

[+Kealia]

Or, you could just make it so only site members can see if there's a coin in a cache. We're not site members yet but it seems like it might help the situation.

 

Nice thinking, but it wouldn't help. People that pay the $3/month for the Premium Membership aren't any better or honest than the rest of the population. Members Only caches end up with junk in them as quickly as non-MO caches, sadly.

 

It's just the same with anything. A small group ruins it for the masses.

[+crazycavelover]

Sorry to hear about everyones losses. I think the "Coin Copies" are acceptable. However, the fact that the coin is a copy should be included in the log when placed. That way honest cachers are not dissapointed. I found a copy of the original stash coin at an event. There was a table of tb's to trade. At the end of the last day, I checked the table. I found a square piece of plastic still left on the table. It was the Geocoin Copy. I dont think anyone notice what it was. It was a good thing I looked. It might of ended up in the trash.

 

I have about 100 geocoins. I collect them. I am afraid to lose them so I dont activate them. However, I do love to move the Geocoins for others. if I have the coin or TB too long, I email the owner out of respect. I try to follow the "Goal" but sometimes make mistakes....

 

AJAYHAWKFAN, never had the chance to see your Geocoin. If possible, I would love to get one from you to drop into the Northern California area. I know many honest cachers in the area that would love to see your coin.

 

And AJAYHAWKFAN, Thanks for dropping your coins in the wildy for others to enjoy!!!!!

[+CoMotion]

I was out west for the past several weeks. Countless times I went to a cache hoping to add a new icon, only to find that the coin was gone and there was no indication of where it went. People, hopefully not those in our hobby, are stealing these things. Some Idahoans I met while they were at a CITO said they've seen some go for good money on ebay. There's got to be a better way to do this. Maybe, keep the coin and there's a cheap plastic version of it with the number on it that goes with the coin and does the travelling. I like finding bugs and coins and would hate to see them eliminated, but it's getting ridiculous. Two of my new personal geocoins are MIA after a whopping 3 months on the road. I know I'm not spending any more money so that people can steal them for a profit (I guess).

[Andys101 & Redfrock]

I have a coin that was released into a cache. A cacher then picked it up and that is the last time it saw the light of day. It has the grand total of 0 miles and after a couple of polite emails, asking for it to be set travelling again, I got a very terse email saying he couldn't find it.

 

So now I have a stolen coin, a lost coin and a muggled TB, and do you know what, I think I feel worst about the lost coin because of the way the situation was handled and the carelessness involved. All my coins are drilled and have their mission attached. I'm not so sure about releasing any more

[+chaosmanor]

Mine are all drilled & tags attached but have still had one go missing. However I mustn't say anymore as I have already been told off in a thread I opened that i was apparently flogging a dead horse

Flog away! Theft of other people's property is not a "dead horse"