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Is your Travel Bug on Ebay?

The Moop Along

By The Moop Along
in Trackables

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The Moop Along

+The Moop Along

Posted
Posted

So, I don't normally fire off threads in this section of the boards, but I thought this puzzle was sort of worth a discussion. Let's say that Joe Ex-cacher goes to a garage sale and finds (7) trackables for sale there, since the garage sale dude just might be Jim Ex-cacher. They buy them back from Jim, but instead of contacting the owners of each item, they resell them on Ebay? Sound far fetched? Nah:

 

Buy your trackables back here

 

I've sent a nice note back to the auction holder, offering to pay postage to get them to my house. I told the auction holder I would then contact each individual TB owner, and await instructions to either cache them, or mail them back at my expense. Should be an interesting auction, either way.

 

TMA

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Crowesfeat30

+Crowesfeat30

Posted
Posted

Sounds like someone (or two someones) profiting from an others loss. :laughing: He (or she) should just drop them into a cache somewhere & get them back into the game - not sell them. I'm sure that at least one of the caches they found "a long time ago" still exists & they can find it again even without a GPS. Unless, of course, they only found one cache..... Still this is wrong!

CF30

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paganfrog

paganfrog

Posted
Posted

Im bidding... if I win, I will contact the owners... and according that, put those trackables on the road... on several good caches around. I SWEAR

 

i dont mean any offence to you at all, but isnt that just going to encourage the theft and sale of more tbs and coins? i mean if these thieves see that we will buy them just to get the tbs back into circulation, then they will just keep stealing and selling more tbs

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Agate Hunters

+Agate Hunters

Posted
Posted

I agree that these coins and bugs should not be bid on. An email to "TEAM SAM" would have been the proper thing to do so they could have contacted Ebay about the possible sale of stolen merchandise.

It just sets a precedence that others will try to copycat. Theres enough trouble with muggles taking caches, we don't need geocachers (past or present) profitting by the illegal sale of stolen travelers on Ebay. :laughing:

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tnt4utvols

+tnt4utvols

Posted
Posted (edited)

I agree that these coins and bugs should not be bid on. An email to "TEAM SAM" would have been the proper thing to do so they could have contacted eBay about the possible sale of stolen merchandise.

I sent "Team Sam" an email this morning, after reading this thread. I told them what was going on, and sent them a link to the auction. I also reported the auction to eBay, but it looks like they will leave the auction up for now:

 

Hello,

 

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to your concern.

 

If you see an item on eBay that you believe is stolen, please contact

law enforcement immediately. Please inform the police officer handling

the case that eBay will be pleased to cooperate in the investigation.

Ask the officer to contact eBay at the following Help page:

 

http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_bas..._selection.html

 

To ensure that the report reaches the right person in the shortest

amount of time, the officer will need to follow these steps:

 

1. Select the "Listing Violations" option, and then click the "Continue"

button.

2. Select the "Stolen property" option, and then select the "You are a

law enforcement official" option.

3. Click the "Continue" button.

4. Click the "Email us" link.

 

The officer will be required to enter his or her contact information

and, if available, will also be asked to enter the Item number, User ID,

and additional information about your report.

 

Feel free to forward this message to the law enforcement officer

assigned to the case.

 

Thanks again for your report.

 

Sincerely,

 

eBay Customer Support

 

The auction lasts for another 6 days; I'm thinking that I will act as an interested buyer and see if I can get the tracking numbers from the seller. Maybe if enough of the real owners contact the seller, they will decide to do the right thing.

 

[edit to say never mind; the seller ended the auction early - game over]

Edited by tnt4utvols
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Parabola

+Parabola

Posted
Posted

I've bought many a (unactivated) geo-coin off e-bay but never seen anything like that before. That's just not right. :D I sure hope with the listing owner closing it early is doing the right thing, by sending them off to a cacher or is going to place them into another cache.

 

I still am kind of in shock after seeing this. <_<

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derschlings

+derschlings

Posted
Posted

this same issue was in another thread. I too contacted the seller on ebay. thus far they have not responded. I also contacted the "winner" (one of our fellow geocachers in Portugal who was bidding so he(she?) could release these coins back to travel) as the seller closed the auction early. I was hoping the seller had decided to release the coins or take one of us up on our offers to pay the postage to get them released. It appears that is not so, as I just got a reply back from the "winner" of the auction noting that the seller is now asking for excessive funds to ship the coins to Portugal. This is all so sad. I applaud those who were bidding in order to free the hostages, however, I'm afraid bidding will just make more coin thieves out there try to sell coins they've stolen.

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RuideAlmeida

RuideAlmeida

Posted
Posted

Hourrah!!!!

The auction owner sent me this email... :"Dear ruidealmeida1962,

 

Hay if it is ok with you lets just forget about the auction. I have had alot of e-mails about it sence I put it on. I will just stick tem in a cach next time I am out and about. I will leave you some good feedback if yoiu will do the same?

 

- blessingspoint "

 

I hope he stick to the promise!

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Rockin Roddy

+Rockin Roddy

Posted
Posted

Hourrah!!!!

The auction owner sent me this email... :"Dear ruidealmeida1962,

 

Hay if it is ok with you lets just forget about the auction. I have had alot of e-mails about it sence I put it on. I will just stick tem in a cach next time I am out and about. I will leave you some good feedback if yoiu will do the same?

 

- blessingspoint "

 

I hope he stick to the promise!

 

GREAT NEWS!!!

 

If you'd like, I would volunteer to have them sent to me and I'd be more than happy to pay him/her for the postage (shouldn't be too much here in the states, should it???). If you want me to do this, contact the seller and give him this option and ask that he contact me, I'll pm you my email addy!

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Bociba

Bociba

Posted
Posted

I hope that the new owner of these travel bugs WILL put them back into the game. I posted my contact with the seller on the TB page. My thanks to all trying to recover these TB's. I had tried to contact the owner of Spinner TB but have not rec'd a reply as of this writing.

 

The seller did send me this response prior to ending the auction early. (I tried to get them back too).

 

"One of the reasons I put them on here is to try to get them away from the area so they don't end up in the same place. A box.. I don't geocach anymore and don't know of anyone who does around here. But I do understand the importance to keep them moving alone. I had one myself that went missing. I am sure that whoever gets them on here will place them back in the game. Why else would they be looking for geocoins. I will do you this though whoever wins the auction."

 

- blessingspoint

 

This ebay seller supposedly is in Energy, Ill. and within 6 to 8 miles of the cache (GCK3AW) where the Spinner TB was las logged.

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Creami Cannoli

+Creami Cannoli

Posted
Posted

Stolen Property. If it was me at the garage sale I would say something to the seller about them and then leave with them without paying.

 

Stealing stolen property will still get you into trouble with the police. All they would have needed to do was call the police and give them your license/info. You couldn't prove you were the owner, so you'd get busted before they would.

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blb9556

+blb9556

Posted
Posted

Stolen Property. If it was me at the garage sale I would say something to the seller about them and then leave with them without paying.

 

Stealing stolen property will still get you into trouble with the police. All they would have needed to do was call the police and give them your license/info. You couldn't prove you were the owner, so you'd get busted before they would.

 

:rolleyes:

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RuideAlmeida

RuideAlmeida

Posted
Posted

Finally I received a reply from Team SAM

 

"Thanks! I look forward to seeing Spinner rolling around Europe! I

appreciate your interest in moving these items around the planet.

 

Thanks again,

 

Team SAM"

 

Well, since the auctioner promise me to drop all the trackables in a cache near him... Jeff will look forward to see they travel thru America.

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