Getting Upset About Tbs

[+ICQ Cache Crew]

I'm getting very irritated with the handling of TBs. We have 5 TBs in circulation. 4 of those 5 are missing , the one that isn't missing won't ever go missing because it's our geocaching mobile!!

 

Anyone have any suggestions on how to keep the TBs in play and people not snatching them for their personal find or??? whatever else is happening to them??

[+BlueDeuce]

Do you add any sheet or tag with TB information? (in addition to the TB dogtag)

 

For Vince's Billiards Fun, I'd send a nice email to hrhsll asking if they happened to pick up something from Where The Tooth Fairest Dwells that looks like a nine ball.

 

as for Lynn's Coca-Cola Travelling Bus, that cache was a crappy TB Hotel that was muggled. I'd talk to the cache owner and ask them to see if they can get the cache back from the property owner or that doorman.

 

Have Harness, I'd check the logbook to see if someone signed it without logging the find on line. I'd hate to think that someone with hundreds of finds took it.

 

Eric's D.A.R.E. Lion, I guess have the owner check the logbook.

 

Webelos by Vince, ask Arsoneye.

[+ICQ Cache Crew]

Do you add any sheet or tag with TB information? (in addition to the TB dogtag)

 

For Vince's Billiards Fun, I'd send a nice email to hrhsll asking if they happened to pick up something from Where The Tooth Fairest Dwells that looks like a nine ball.

 

as for Lynn's Coca-Cola Travelling Bus, that cache was a crappy TB Hotel that was muggled. I'd talk to the cache owner and ask them to see if they can get the cache back from the property owner or that doorman.

 

Have Harness, I'd check the logbook to see if someone signed it without logging the find on line. I'd hate to think that someone with hundreds of finds took it.

 

Eric's D.A.R.E. Lion, I guess have the owner check the logbook.

 

Webelos by Vince, ask Arsoneye.

 

I am the one who owns the cache that I placed Have Harness in. I contacted all who supposed have visited that cache and no one is claiming to have grabbed it. The Vince's Billiards Fun, I have contacted hrhsll and they said that it wasn't there in the cache. I have tried everything I could to try to get these TBs back. It's just truly disappointing that so many TBs are coming up missing.

 

Are other people having trouble with their TBs disappearing?

[+BlueDeuce]

Are other people having trouble with their TBs disappearing?

 

It's not uncommon.

 

Did you add any information along with the bugs? Bug sheet, laminated tag?

[+Snoogans]

I know of someone with over 600 TBs and they recently told me that they lose about 30 a month.

 

If your TB is giving you heartburn, my advice is to forget about it and concentrate on more positive aspects of the game.

[+TEAM 360]

concentrate on more positive aspects of the game.

 

Which would be....???

 

Just kidding, Snoogs...suffering from microburnout here, that's all...

[+Colorado Cacher]

Are other people having trouble with their TBs disappearing?

 

It's not uncommon.

 

Did you add any information along with the bugs? Bug sheet, laminated tag?

 

All over the Colorado Springs area for some reason.

[+Team LaLonde]

You are not alone. I have four TBs and a coin. I keep the coin in a safe place while the others travel. One of the four in circulation is last reported at a Green Bay TB hotel and the other three are 'in the hands of. . .'

 

Anyone who loses 30 TBs a month is just plain careless and irresponsible. It kills me to think that I spend hard earned money on something for other people to lose or steal. For those that 'collect' TBs - you are stealing! Knock it off. If you have a knack for losing them, stop handling TBs. If you feel you MUST take a TB, please place it in a timely manner. How friggin' difficult is this concept?

[+Zilvervloot]

Losing a travel bug is hard but its part of real life.

 

Whenever I set a travelbug free, I consider them as already lost. It’s only a matter of time. Sooner or later it will happen to every bug and to every coin. Hopefully it will take a long time, so a many geocachers can enjoy them. But the life of a travel bug is full of adventures and filled with treats. Travelbug hotels, ignorant newbie’s, ripped caches, thieves/admirers, etc.

 

That’s why it’s never wise to make a (to you) valuable travel bug. I will always get lost.

 

Zilvervloot.

[+Beffums]

You are not alone. I have four TBs and a coin. I keep the coin in a safe place while the others travel. One of the four in circulation is last reported at a Green Bay TB hotel and the other three are 'in the hands of. . .'

 

Anyone who loses 30 TBs a month is just plain careless and irresponsible. It kills me to think that I spend hard earned money on something for other people to lose or steal. For those that 'collect' TBs - you are stealing! Knock it off. If you have a knack for losing them, stop handling TBs. If you feel you MUST take a TB, please place it in a timely manner. How friggin' difficult is this concept?

I think Snoogans meant that of the 600 his friend owns, about 30 of them go missing each month. That really sucks for the friend, btw.

 

Are many people careless with TBs? yup - but that's the risk of sending out TB's. And, sometimes there's a really good reason why a log wasn't made in a timely manner. Does it annoy me when I see someone log a WAYYY backdated log on one of my bugs? yup. Do I get over it? yup Does it annoy me that one of my bugs was never logged out of an event (that I hosted) even though I saw exactly who walked out the door with it and they e-mailed back that yup, they had it? yes (Ok, I'll stop venting on that one now) Will I eventually get over it? yup Then, what do you do when someone puts one of your TB's in a cache you own,... and the cache gets muggled while it's there - curse the cache owner? yup, had that one happen too. That's when I decided that I needed to give other cachers a lot of slack with these things. It just made me less stressed if I didn't fret about it all the time.

 

ICQ if it helps - lots of TB's go missing (I know, cold comfort there). But, sometimes they also reappear. Scan this forum for stories of TB's resurfacing years after they'd gone MIA. Maybe your TB's too will return someday - hopefully someday soon.

[+brodiebunch]

We have 28 TB's and 9 have unknown whereabouts.

 

When you drop a TB into a cache, you are literally saying goodbye-like a note in a bottle tossed into the ocean.

 

If your TB is visually unappealing, it will languish in a cache.

 

If your TB is very cute or clever, it will end sitting on top of someone's computer monitor or car's dashboard.

 

What can you do?

[+Team Neos]

Yep, cute ones go missing a lot, I noticed. I picked up a very cute frog on my way home from a Spring Break trip one year. And then the weather got nasty, and I just got too busy with school, and the couple of times that I did go caching I only found small geocaches (and that frog was BIG). Anyway, a couple of months went by and I still had that frog. I wrote the owner and promised to get him out again soon. A couple of weeks later, I sent that frog packing with my husband who was doing a log replacement run at one of his larger caches. He dropped it off, I logged it in....and that is that last that anyone has heard or seen from the frog.

 

I wish I had kept him another week or so, maybe he would still be out there in circulation.

[+ICQ Cache Crew]

Thank you everyone for your replies. It's truly is heart wrenching when all of the TBs you have put into circulation, except for your own vehicle TB, comes up missing.

 

I guess one of our TBs was cute (a stuff animal my son got for completing D.A.R.E), one was just a 9ball bouncy ball, one was a brand new dog harness that wouldn't fit our puppy dog and one was a keychain that my son had made. One just ended up in an unfortunate geocache that was muggled .

[+Eartha]

The fun part is when they reappear a year later, out of the blue. You never know!

[+BlueDeuce]

The fun part is when they reappear a year later, out of the blue. You never know!

 

I beg your pardon. I've never had a TB come out of any part of me!