Geocoin Hostage

[+Hooligan14]

Any help, advise or similar problem anyone?

 

Last April I received a Geocoin for my BDay. Waiting for a good chance to drop it, I waited for a trip to Victoria BC in July and was eager to track its travel. It was picked up once or twice soon after, but has moved only 98km. The problem is that, the cacher who picked up my coin in August still have it in their posession. They joined geocaching.com in July and havent visited the site since Aug 19!! I emailed them through geocaching .com in Oct or Nov and did not get a reply. Their log states they were excited to pick up the coin..... but I fear they think it is to collect and not to drop off. Unless the site's data is incorrect, this cacher hasn't even been caching since Aug.

[+Mauison]

Any help, advise or similar problem anyone?

 

Last April I received a Geocoin for my BDay. Waiting for a good chance to drop it, I waited for a trip to Victoria BC in July and was eager to track its travel. It was picked up once or twice soon after, but has moved only 98km. The problem is that, the cacher who picked up my coin in August still have it in their posession. They joined geocaching.com in July and havent visited the site since Aug 19!! I emailed them through geocaching .com in Oct or Nov and did not get a reply. Their log states they were excited to pick up the coin..... but I fear they think it is to collect and not to drop off. Unless the site's data is incorrect, this cacher hasn't even been caching since Aug.

 

I've had the same thing happen to me on a couple of occasions. Each time, I emailed the cachers numerous times over the period of a year or so. No response and no drops of the coins so I gave up and marked the coins as missing.

 

Some cachers rename their coins with the words STOLEN at the beginning of the coin. Sometimes this gets the cacher to drop the coin because they don't want to be seen as holding a stolen coin.

 

Good luck!

[+wutzebear]

I emailed them through geocaching .com in Oct or Nov and did not get a reply.

When you sent them a mail, did you check "I want to send my email address along with this message."? Some mail-providers mark these mails as spam and sort them out. Try sending another mail without this field checked and write your adress in the text.

[+dflye]

So far I've just let stray coins run around without comment....one coin I released was picked up in May in NC and then dropped on in Minnesota in December! dflye's Wildlife Muggles Bucky Beaver Geocoin

 

Things come up, priorities change, coins are misplaced or dropped without being logged. Heck, last year I had an almost 4 month cache-or-more-a-day streak followed up not too much later by about a 2 month break.

 

The coin may turn up, ya never know!

[+stickerooni]

It happens. If they are newbies, chances are that they aren't as excited about caching and it may be a few months before they get out again (if ever). If they really were out to take the coin to put it in to a collection they probably wouldn't have logged it as retrieving the coin.

 

Once a year I go through and check my travelers and send an email to anyone who's picked up a coin or bug but hasn't dropped it within two months. Of the seven that I sent out this past fall, two responded that they still had it and apologized and explained family situations that prevented them from getting out.

 

I've got some coins that travel a lot and some that go missing on their first time out.

 

My advice ... send more coins out. The more that you have out, the less you worry about one or two.

[WI_Robin]

I recently had someone contact me who I have been sending a polite e-mail to every month for a year. This is the first time they returned my e-mail. They said that they would place the coin soon and if it didn't get placed in the next week send them an other reminder . I have had some luck with new cachers that picked up coins and stopped geocaching by checking their logs to see if they where caching with an other person. If so I send that person a nice e-mail asking if they are still in touch with ----- because it appears that ------ is no longer active and has one of my geocoins in their possession. Sometimes it works.

 

If I release a coin I try to not get too worked up about it going missing. I have had coins that I have given up for lost re-appear after a year of being missing. For the coins I have that are missing I have started a book with the coins picture, logs and how it ended up going missing. I am going to put this book in a cache at my house (A TB cemetary - that accepts traveling visitors). That way people can still "discover" the missing coin. I figure it's as good as sending out a copy, but I can easily remove the coin from the binder if it should re-appear in the wild - while recovering a traveling copy would be more difficult.

 

Currently I have 290 activated geocoins. I have 21 still in my posession, 19 of those being prepared to be released. 38 are confirmed missing. All of the rest (231 geocoins) I am either pretty sure they are still in the cache listed, or have received an e-mail from the holder stating they will release it some time in the future. It comes out to a 14% "failure" rate. I don't think that's too terrible.

[+Hooligan14]

So far I've just let stray coins run around without comment....one coin I released was picked up in May in NC and then dropped on in Minnesota in December! dflye's Wildlife Muggles Bucky Beaver Geocoin

 

Things come up, priorities change, coins are misplaced or dropped without being logged. Heck, last year I had an almost 4 month cache-or-more-a-day streak followed up not too much later by about a 2 month break.

 

The coin may turn up, ya never know!

 

Thanks for optimism. My fear is that if they haven't logged on to site since Aug, they may no longer be actively caching.

[+Hooligan14]

It happens. If they are newbies, chances are that they aren't as excited about caching and it may be a few months before they get out again (if ever). If they really were out to take the coin to put it in to a collection they probably wouldn't have logged it as retrieving the coin.

 

Once a year I go through and check my travelers and send an email to anyone who's picked up a coin or bug but hasn't dropped it within two months. Of the seven that I sent out this past fall, two responded that they still had it and apologized and explained family situations that prevented them from getting out.

 

I've got some coins that travel a lot and some that go missing on their first time out.

 

My advice ... send more coins out. The more that you have out, the less you worry about one or two.

 

I agree on the newbie statement....and I don't think they would purposely hoard or collect the coin. Just mistakenly collect it. I would hope that if the interest died off a bit ( 5 mos. idle) they might drop the coin in a local cache.

I will try to email again and avoid spam possibilty as suggested...thanks

[+Mama Cache]

I am a travel bug loser. A coin misplacer. So I do have some compasion.

I just recently went looking for one of mine that had some good miles on it. You always hate to see the ones with good miles go down. The folks say they didn't take my coin, but their log clearly states they took a coin. In researching what was in the cache at that time, I see mine was the only one.

I just ask them to niceley to recheck. After that what can you do? Pretty much at their mercy.

[+Hooligan14]

I emailed them through geocaching .com in Oct or Nov and did not get a reply.

When you sent them a mail, did you check "I want to send my email address along with this message."? Some mail-providers mark these mails as spam and sort them out. Try sending another mail without this field checked and write your adress in the text.

 

Didn't consider junkmail routing... Thanks for suggestion.

[+Droo]

The problem with noobs is that no one has shown them how to use the website. I always assume that people with less than 100 finds may not be familiar with the technicalities of handling other people's travelers and so I like to include a link to http://www.geocaching.com/track/howtogeocoin.aspx page.

Aside from that all you can do is hope they will come through and see the light of what they have done wrong if they don't a darn about the concern they have caused you.

Edited January 15, 2008 by Droo

[+Arrow One]

Any help, advise or similar problem anyone?

 

Last April I received a Geocoin for my BDay. Waiting for a good chance to drop it, I waited for a trip to Victoria BC in July and was eager to track its travel. It was picked up once or twice soon after, but has moved only 98km. The problem is that, the cacher who picked up my coin in August still have it in their posession. They joined geocaching.com in July and havent visited the site since Aug 19!! I emailed them through geocaching .com in Oct or Nov and did not get a reply. Their log states they were excited to pick up the coin..... but I fear they think it is to collect and not to drop off. Unless the site's data is incorrect, this cacher hasn't even been caching since Aug.

 

I've had the same thing happen to me on a couple of occasions. Each time, I emailed the cachers numerous times over the period of a year or so. No response and no drops of the coins so I gave up and marked the coins as missing.

 

Some cachers rename their coins with the words STOLEN at the beginning of the coin. Sometimes this gets the cacher to drop the coin because they don't want to be seen as holding a stolen coin.

 

Good luck!

 

I just tried the adding "Stolen" to a few of my bugs names that are being held, to see if it works. We'll see.

[+Eartha]

You could also try posting a note on the page that it isn't for keeps, and to please place it in a cache to travel. Some people don't get the emails sent through the system, it might go into a spam folder on their server.

[+TheCollector]

So far I've just let stray coins run around without comment....one coin I released was picked up in May in NC and then dropped on in Minnesota in December! dflye's Wildlife Muggles Bucky Beaver Geocoin

 

Things come up, priorities change, coins are misplaced or dropped without being logged. Heck, last year I had an almost 4 month cache-or-more-a-day streak followed up not too much later by about a 2 month break.

 

The coin may turn up, ya never know!

 

lol i just moved that coin