malicious cachers

[+va griz]

Can anything be done when you have somebody like this?

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/Default....5f-49f2762a4ea4

 

Apparently he gets a kick out of stealing caches. Could you close out his account? I guess you would have to block his email address too in order to prevent him from creating a new account. Is this form of mental illness common?

[Keystone]

Sorry to see this in my review territory. One of the three stolen caches is among my favorite finds of all time.

 

This is likely a local kid who discovered geocaching and thought it would be fun to steal caches in the area. Usually they go away if ignored. They are looking for attention and to provoke a reaction, much like an arsonist who watches the fire department arrive at the building they set ablaze.

 

You should write to Groundspeak at contact@geocaching.com with any information. They can look into the account and take appropriate action.

[+J-Way]

Unfortunately, there will always be the occasional simple-minded waste of oxygen who gets all giggly when doing moronic activities.

 

There is no easy solution, because if TPTB ban the account the moron will just create a new one.

 

The best ways to prevent theft of caches remain the same:

- Hide caches as a puzzle or multi (simple-minded people tend to avoid mental excercise)

- Hide caches that require a strenuous walk/climb (same physical excercise)

- List as a Member only cache (sometimes helps a little)

 

Good luck!

[+va griz]

Just for clarification, I only saw this problem referenced on another thread. I've never cached near there or ran into this. And I would tend to agree, at some point this guy may well grow up and stop playing childish games. I just thought there might be a way to lock him out until he can play well with others.

[knowschad]

All three of his caches were yours. Its obvious that he is targeting you for some reason, unless he's hitting other local cachers under other sock-puppet accounts. I was glad to see that you left one (the one that mtn-man said was amongst his favorites) open, with a challenge that you will be watching. Hope you catch him, but I'm not sure what you could do about it, even if you caught him red-handed. Best of luck to you!

[xxxOLDDOGxxx]

I tell you all .I live i the area this "person" is hitting. We will be keeping an eye out .If anyone has any info please feel free to contact me.

[+m.austin]

Well, you could make friends with the local police. See if you can sweet talk one of them into coming down if you catch this creep & scaring the beejeezus out of him. It would be amusing to have said policeman cuff him & threaten jail time, then let him off with a stern warning that if any caches go missing this jerk-o will be arrested.

 

Or, if you catch him, grab him by the elbow & drag him home to mommy & let her know what her lil' darlin is doing. (not that that will matter more than likely, but you could luck out with an honest-to-gosh parent who would do the right thing...)

[+ReadyOrNot]

<sarcasm>

 

You should make contact with this individual and find out why they are stealing your caches. Try to reason with the individual. If the individual continues stealing your caches, its best to give into their demands. Perhaps remove all of your caches, thus eliminating their ability to steal them. If they continue stealing other people's caches, those cache owners should immediately archive all of their caches. Continue this process until there are no more caches for the thief to steal. Eventually, this problem will take care of itself. Under no circumstances should you contact the police or suggest in the forums that they contact the police, because this could possibly upset the cache thief, causing them to steal more caches.

 

</sarcasm>

 

On a serious note: It's probably a teenager or something. If I think back, I can remember doing really stupid, destructive things and thinking it was funny... If they are ignored, they won't continue for long. If they are targetting you specifically, then that's a whole different ball game.

Edited July 8, 2008 by ReadyOrNot

[+flask]

i used to "know a guy who knew a guy"...

 

i hear it can be a very effective management technique.

[xxxOLDDOGxxx]

I dont see why you have to reason with a thief.I guess you could archive all caches but what do the cachers do then? I hope they get bored sooner than later because,granted my family and I havent been doing this a long time,we love spending the time together .

[+slackpacker]

I was surprised - and saddened - to see that one of the missing caches (Tiger Den) was a "find" for me on a business trip to Columbus two years ago; small world. I remember it being stuffed with lots of scouting swag - what a shame.

 

Puzzling that one of the "hits" was a members only cache(?)

 

Sad that somebody would go out of their way to make life difficult for others - the only reward being the secret knowledge you've been a real jerk. Truly sad.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Well, you could make friends with the local police. See if you can sweet talk one of them into coming down if you catch this creep & scaring the beejeezus out of him. It would be amusing to have said policeman cuff him & threaten jail time, then let him off with a stern warning that if any caches go missing this jerk-o will be arrested.

 

Or, if you catch him, grab him by the elbow & drag him home to mommy & let her know what her lil' darlin is doing. (not that that will matter more than likely, but you could luck out with an honest-to-gosh parent who would do the right thing...)

Please remember that in most states, grabbing anyone, particularly a juvenile, by the arm and dragging them anywhere is an invitation to be arrested on felony assault and battery and kidnapping charges.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

i used to "know a guy who knew a guy"...

 

i hear it can be a very effective management technique.

Very well put, my dear flask...

 

And, if my memory serves me correctly, the going rate in most parts of the mainland USA for snipers who can handle such surveillance-and-kill postings seems to range from about $1,000 USD per day to $4,800 per day (see postscript #1.)

 

Just thinkin' aloud, of course... You know, I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just sayin'....

 

Postscript #1: A late postscript... while I quoted above a typical per diem fee ranging from $1,000 USD and upwards, the reality is that such services are often available to geocachers at vastly reduced costs or even free of charge, dependent upon numerous local, regional and situational variables, and indeed, such qualified snipers can sometimes even be recruited from the ranks of willing and able local cachers.

Edited July 8, 2008 by Vinny & Sue Team

[+m.austin]

<snip>Please remember that in most states, grabbing anyone, particularly a juvenile, by the arm and dragging them anywhere is an invitation to be arrested on felony assault and battery and kidnapping charges.

 

Using the <snip> method cause the quote feature is leaving all coding showing.

 

Yes, I am a teacher, and hubby & son are both in law enforcement. I am fully aware of laws regarding juveniles. It was said more tongue in cheek. Course if this were 30 years ago it would have been acceptable and approved practice.

Edited July 8, 2008 by m.austin

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Wow - muggling a cache is bad, but suggesting doing violence to the muggle is okay?

[+Lasagna]

I make my nicer caches premium only caches ... it's keeps riff raff such as this away from finding them. Sure, it might reduce the number of people who seek it, but it's not about the find count, it's about bringing like minded people to an interesting location.

[+ReZappers]

So I guess if you leave something outside in a public place, even if marked that it's a geocache and do not remove... and someone maliciously steals it... it's not theft of property?

What if you own the property and you publish a cache on it, and someone steals it off your property, is that theft?

[CoyoteRed]

Wow - muggling a cache is bad, but suggesting doing violence to the muggle is okay?

In secret societies, the secret must be maintained. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

[CoyoteRed]

So I guess if you leave something outside in a public place, even if marked that it's a geocache and do not remove... and someone maliciously steals it... it's not theft of property?

What if you own the property and you publish a cache on it, and someone steals it off your property, is that theft?

I definitely could make the case for petit larceny here in South Carolina. If someone takes a cache in such a way it fits the elements of the crime.

[+Flatouts]

Wonder what color choices the dye packs the banks use come in...of course it wouldn't make a good swag item unless the individual it was intended for got it if you know what I mean!! J/K

 

Thinking out loud here

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Wow - muggling a cache is bad, but suggesting doing violence to the muggle is okay?

From my vantage point, no one has suggested violence, but rather, simply elimination, aka sanction, which is rather a different, and far cleaner and far saner, proposition altogether. And, it is really best not to discuss such things too openly on the public sections of the forum. Rather, TAR, I suggest that you, flask and I continue this conversation in the private limited-access section of the forum, perhaps as we munch on the barbecued ribs of executed cache thieves.

 

And, from the perspective of most of the world's major religions and also most of the world's major spiritual traditions, such sanctions could easily be seen simply as an act of deep compassion and mercy, for it is quite obvious to even the casual and non-trained observer that a cache thief is a very unhappy and tormented person who is plagued by the demons of fear, rage and depression, and thus the sanction is merely an act of mercy and grace, to allow the person to return to a place of deep peace and stillness.

Edited July 8, 2008 by Vinny & Sue Team

[Dinoprophet]

I make my nicer caches premium only caches ... it's keeps riff raff such as this away from finding them. Sure, it might reduce the number of people who seek it, but it's not about the find count, it's about bringing like minded people to an interesting location.

One of the three stolen caches was a PMO.

[+The Pathman]

And, from the perspective of most of the world's major religions and also most of the world's major spiritual traditions, such sanctions could easily be seen simply as an act of deep compassion and mercy, for it is quite obvious to even the casual and non-trained observer that a cache thief is a very unhappy and tormented person who is plagued by the demons of fear, rage and depression, and thus the sanction is merely an act of mercy and grace, to allow the person to return to a place of deep peace and stillness.

 

You must be talking about the bottom of your local bottomless lake...

Yes, it would be a wonderful place of deep peace and stillness

[+R.O.B]

We had a problem like this in Fort Worth a few years back. Somebody was taking all the contents and Travel Bugs and leaving the containers. About 11 of my caches had been targeted along with others. We figured the person that did this was wanting attention so we decided to deprive them of it. Instead of discussing it in the Texas Geocaching forums we started a invite-only Yahoo group to discuss the situation. We contacted the cachers who had found and logged the muggled cache (and the note the cache thief left).We had them edit their log to take out anything negative about the cache and just basic info about finding it.

 

It seemed to have worked. Without any attention and with seemingly no discussion about the theif's antics they stopped doing it. Don't know if it will work for you, but it worked for us.

[+DonB]

Wow - muggling a cache is bad, but suggesting doing violence to the muggle is okay?

yes

[+TheWonderStuff]

I see he is banned now - good job, but watch for his next account!!

 

Was he boasting about his "trashing" on his profile page?

 

What a drop kick

[+SixDogTeam]

Wow - muggling a cache is bad, but suggesting doing violence to the muggle is okay?

yes

 

NO

[Mr.Yuck]

I see he is banned now - good job, but watch for his next account!!

 

Was he boasting about his "trashing" on his profile page?

 

What a drop kick

 

Banned, and his find logs erased from existance. The question is, did they use IP address forensics to trace the sock puppet to an existing "normal" player account?

[+infiniteMPG]

-->

QUOTE(R.O.B @ Jul 8 2008, 01:39 PM) 3549473[/snapback]

We had a problem like this in Fort Worth a few years back. Somebody was taking all the contents and Travel Bugs and leaving the containers.

We had found a few caches around the Tampa area in Florida where we found the log and the contents of the cache scattered on the ground and the ammo can carted off to be used for a tackle box or something. Also had some pretty good camo jobs disappear which would be nice to have an amber alert thing somewhere to ID caches that mysteriously re-appear somewhere else as someone else's hide.

 

Sounds to me like if this was a continual problem it could be seen as a chance to bait a trap and set up a cache too irressitable to stay away from for the criminal-wannabe. Then either lie in wait, place it where it can be monitored by someone at work or home or webcam it and deal with them accordingly.

 

Note : "deal with it accordingly" in no way means to sit in the bushes with a baseball bat or bush axe and archive the cache as soon as things are "delt with" so that no other witnesses.... errr, I mean geocachers, visit that particular plot.... errrr... I mean spot of land again.

[4wheelin_fool]

Wow - muggling a cache is bad, but suggesting doing violence to the muggle is okay?

 

NO, violence towards muggles is completely unacceptable. Violence towards a cache bandit, on the other hand is completely different...

From my vantage point, no one has suggested violence, but rather, simply elimination, aka sanction, which is rather a different, and far cleaner and far saner, proposition altogether. And, it is really best not to discuss such things too openly on the public sections of the forum. Rather, TAR, I suggest that you, flask and I continue this conversation in the private limited-access section of the forum, perhaps as we munch on the barbecued ribs of executed cache thieves.

 

And, from the perspective of most of the world's major religions and also most of the world's major spiritual traditions....

 

If I get hit once, maybe twice, I ALWAYS turn the other cheek.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that, they get payback, with interest.

 

The bandit struck 3 times, so he's fair game....

Edited July 9, 2008 by 4wheelin_fool

[+sbell111]

I see he is banned now - good job, but watch for his next account!!

 

Was he boasting about his "trashing" on his profile page?

 

What a drop kick

 

Banned, and his find logs erased from existance. The question is, did they use IP address forensics to trace the sock puppet to an existing "normal" player account?

That's why I always post my 'BrianSnat' posts from the library.

[+Konnarock Kid & Marge]

Please don't take any 'personal' action against the thief. You will only end up in deep s---. Some of you may have seen a recent thread that I had on this subject. Juveniles are not the only ones to steal and/or destroy caches. Down here we have obsessed adults who follow suit!

Out him the best way you can and did and that's about it. Sorry I know the frustration.

[+Renegade Knight]

...

Please remember that in most states, grabbing anyone, particularly a juvenile, by the arm and dragging them anywhere is an invitation to be arrested on felony assault and battery and kidnapping charges.

I had to teach my kids about this paradox.

 

Me "Why didn't you just slug the little SOB when he took your ball and kicked it into the field?"

Kid "...I'd get in trouble."

Me "Why didn't you tell a teacher?"

Kid "and tattle! Ugh!"

Me "Did he get in trouble for taking the ball?"

Kid "No...."

Me "Why not?"

Kid "He didn't get caught"

Me "So if you slug the little SOB when he's busy not getting caught, how are you going to get caught? Obviously he's relying on the tattle tale rule and the teachers not looking. The same thing works for you"

Kid "....oh....but what If I get caught?"

Me "For doing the right thing and solving the problem? I'll back you up and tell the principal how proud I am for you standing up"..

 

Some kids need a good arm grabbing and being hauled to their parents door where the offended and cluless parent can then call the police and have you arrested.

[+Renegade Knight]

So I guess if you leave something outside in a public place, even if marked that it's a geocache and do not remove... and someone maliciously steals it... it's not theft of property?

What if you own the property and you publish a cache on it, and someone steals it off your property, is that theft?

 

It's always theft. Stealing personal property is stealing. It falls low on the list of police priorites.

 

Example. Some doofie shot out our street light and the window of my rig. I called the police. They said "Looks like he used a BB gun, here is one of the BB's would you like a police report for your rig?" It ended there.

 

At the same time in a town 50 miles a way some kids went on a rampage with a BB gun and shot out window after window. After the complaints piled up it became a priority. 50 or so windows and they finally caught the kids. My kid? Nope. I just got the offer of a report. Caches are like my window. I'm not sure how many it would take to become like the windows in that other town.

[+Suburban Hillbillies]

I see he is banned now - good job, but watch for his next account!!

 

Was he boasting about his "trashing" on his profile page?

 

What a drop kick

 

Banned, and his find logs erased from existance. The question is, did they use IP address forensics to trace the sock puppet to an existing "normal" player account?

 

I noticed one of the caches this person took was a Premium Member Only cache. Made me think they have another account, or know someone.

 

Hopefully they will go away.

 

I mentioned on another caching board not to post their name on a message board, as they will probably google themself to see how much attention they are getting. If they see they are not getting any attention, maybe they will find a new hobby, like knocking on peoples doors and running.

 

Dang whippersnappers.