Inventories have been consistently wrong lately

[+gururyan]

It's not usually this bad, but the last 20 or so caches I have hit that were supposed to have trackables have been empty. It is beyond frustrating when a cache shows 5 bugs and 3 coins, yet when you arrive there is nothing but food, trash, and other illegal crap in them. I'm heading out of town soon and wanted to find some trackables I could give some miles to. I'm seeing more and more missing trackables and when I do my own investigating, it keeps putting the MIA dates around geocachers that have less than 10 finds to their credit. Did another movie come out that exposed geocaching? What's with the onslaught of newbies and missing trackables?

 

Frustrated.

Edited November 22, 2010 by gururyan

[+StarBrand]

Nothing new about it. 13 of my 14 original trackables from 2003 and 2004 went missing within a few months. It happens.

 

Occasionally, missing items re-appear a few years and a few hundred miles away - never give up on them.

[mtbikernate]

I've noticed the same trend.

 

I have 3 trackables in "the wild" right now and none of them are in a cache or have seen activity in a long time. One was actually logged out of the cache it was in...but that was almost a year ago, and a second one was one of those unlogged bugs that's just missing.

 

I have a trackable in my inventory right now collecting some miles before I release it over the holidays....I'm going to give it a BIG tag that says in BIG letters how to log it and what to do with it. My previous bugs have had relatively small tags, but I'm leaving nothing to the imagination this time.

[jholly]

Best place to score trackables is at an event.

[+ventura_kids]

I believe there is a "missing" bug place now.

I remember moving a bunch of my missing travelbugs into it.

[+addisonbr]

The inventory for my first hidden cache is never accurate. It's pretty consistently a few days if not a week or two or three behind. Most of the visitors are tourists and many don't log their finds until they get home. There's very little I can do about it, unfortunately.

[+Chokecherry]

The last ones I was at before the snow came were pretty accurate. A coin here and there missing but otherwise really accurate.

[+hydnsek]

Best place to score trackables is at an event.

Also the best place to lose trackables. Some TB owners request to not have their trackables put into events since they may get lost or go unlogged for months.

[Keystone]

I am moving this thread from the Geocaching Topics forum to the Travel Bug forum.

[+JAT2010]

I'm already starting to feel jinxed.

I took a Smart car TB to edinburgh as part of a race.

The owner dropped, it, I took it 200+ miles, and now it has vanished.

Thats maybe 3 days in Scotland, and unless someone is late logging, its been stolen.

 

I went to the GC10 cache around the other side of Edinburgh Castle this morning.

The details of the cache show 5 TBs should be there..

Nope.

A broken watch (why???) some cracker fillers and a bottle top.

 

Both my TBs are either missing from their first cache, or in 'dead' caches.

So I'm not keen on investing in more right now.

 

I think the problem is that people are putting 'meaningful' stuff attached to the actual travel tag.

They're just too 'collectable' to the magpies.

 

Guess we should make the tbs a thing of ugliness, or maybe imbue them with a lingering smell to encourage people to move them on!

[+purplemoon48030]

It's not usually this bad, but the last 20 or so caches I have hit that were supposed to have trackables have been empty. It is beyond frustrating when a cache shows 5 bugs and 3 coins, yet when you arrive there is nothing but food, trash, and other illegal crap in them. I'm heading out of town soon and wanted to find some trackables I could give some miles to. I'm seeing more and more missing trackables and when I do my own investigating, it keeps putting the MIA dates around geocachers that have less than 10 finds to their credit. Did another movie come out that exposed geocaching? What's with the onslaught of newbies and missing trackables?

 

Frustrated.

I am new myself and the last 6 caches i have been to have the same thing going on.

[Aidt]

I own a cache, that has the rule to take and put coins (real, not geocoins) in and out under the motto of a pirate's treasury. Now it's full of real coins and two geocoins and a travel bug.

An other of my caches currently contains two geocoins, a third contains two bugs. No trash, no food, no weapons or fireworks so far.

I know a very busy cacher with > 5700 finds, 160 own, well kept caches, having dozends of own coins on the way, but he also has a book with at least 170 coins, which he just collects, never exchanges and only shows on events, so people can log them as "discovered". If he likes a coin, he simply keeps it.

When You follow geocoins histories, You find, that they often stay at one person for months, no matter, what the coin owner wrote to be it's destination. And - Yes - I sometimes find a cache empty, that should contain trackables.

Of cause, if a coin is rather nice, some people look up the prices for them. And since they can find coins for sale for $ 200 and more, some prefer selling them to logging them.

I don't really understand, why all those geocaching stores sell collection folders etc. On caching events, I often see proudly presented collections of hundreds of coins. And when I say, these coins were meant to travel, I just get a grin. "When I'm dead, my children will sell the nicer ones and put the rest in some cache somewhere." That's how people are.

_

Groundspeak should disclaim keeping a trackable for longer than a week as bad behavior, unless it makes 100 Miles per week before it reaches a new cache.

 

Aidt

[Aidt]

By the way:

Germany's first cache ever (GC77) was hidden in 2000, lost due to earthworks and replaced in 2003, moved in 2006. Then in 2009, the original box was discovered again and two travel bugs were found in it and are on the road again.

GC77 has 1625 logs and has contained 880 trackables up to now. In the moment is has 7 TBs and coins.

 

So hope never dies!

 

But:

The simple number of trackables leads to the result, that several busy cachers only take a coin out of a cache, when it's nice and ignore the ugly ones and all the Teddybears with tavel bugs around their neck.

So @JAK2010: stinking TBs would probably not work - even though I like the idea somehow... perhaps... hmmm... a cache only detectable by its smell... moshus oder cedaroil in a birch wood...

Sorry folks - I've got a cache to hide - right now!

Edited November 25, 2010 by Aidt

[7rxc]

Discover logs at events should always show the Event and whose collection it was in... just a thought.

 

Doug 7rxc

[+gururyan]

So, as a cache owner, can we clear or update the inventory list on our caches so that it is correct?

[+BlueDeuce]

So, as a cache owner, can we clear or update the inventory list on our caches so that it is correct?

 

Yep, if it has been confirmed as missing access the bug page and select Mark item missing. I prefer to wait at least 30 days after the first missing report before moving it out. Not 30 days after the Drop.

 

Marking it as missing will put an automated Note on the bug page alerting the owner what has happened.

 

Edited November 27, 2010 by BlueDeuce

[+Mr.Skully]

I got an email one day from a cacher that said there was 20 plus bugs in my Bug Hostel and the web page only showed 14 TB's.

I went to the cache and there was 33 TB's 20 of which had been marked missing, so I disabled the cache and brought it home so I could grab all the bugs to get them moving again and took some to other caches.

 

I keep an eye on my caches and if there is TB's on the list and note in the cache I mark them as missing keeping my cache inventory right.

Drives me nuts to plan out a day of caching and finding TB's and get to a cache and find no TB's.

I have a TB missing right now and it is still listed in the cache, I have emailed the CO with out any reply's to the matter.

1/2 the World thing. 1/2 will and 1/2 will not..

 

 

Skully

 

edit to add image..

Edited December 27, 2010 by Mr.Skully

[+The Blorenges]

I got an email one day from a cacher that said there was 20 plus bugs in my Bug Hostel and the web page only showed 14 TB's.

I went to the cache and there was 33 TB's 20 of which had been marked missing, so I disabled the cache and brought it home so I could grab all the bugs to get them moving again and took some to other caches...

 

 

That's excellent news for 20 TB owners - a Christmas bonus for them. I wonder what the back story is? Always good to read posts about trackables that re-appear rather than disappear. I got a notification today of one that I put on Watch because the owner posted on these forums that they feared it was stolen... Happily it's still travelling.

 

MrsB

[+Mr.Skully]

I got an email one day from a cacher that said there was 20 plus bugs in my Bug Hostel and the web page only showed 14 TB's.

I went to the cache and there was 33 TB's 20 of which had been marked missing, so I disabled the cache and brought it home so I could grab all the bugs to get them moving again and took some to other caches...

 

 

That's excellent news for 20 TB owners - a Christmas bonus for them. I wonder what the back story is? Always good to read posts about trackables that re-appear rather than disappear. I got a notification today of one that I put on Watch because the owner posted on these forums that they feared it was stolen... Happily it's still travelling.

 

MrsB

 

MrsB.. I have 2 TB's that have come to a stand still now and I have mailed the holders twice and nothing yet. Sure hope they get moving some day. I have marked many that I moved so I could watch, sad to see how many really do go MIA.

 

Skully