Travel Bug Theft

[+Torchwood Four]

Our team primarily does geocaching in the Williamsburg, Virginia area. We're relatively new to the hobby, having only really actively pursued it since about August of this year. One thing we've noticed quite a lot of is travel bugs missing from caches that show them in inventory. It's so rampant in Williamsburg that we're to the point that when we see a new TB flag appear on the local cache lists, we try to get to it before anyone else out of fear that if we don't 'rescue' it and move it to a safer location (such as in a park that charges admission, for example), there's a good chance it will disappear for good. A couple of weeks ago, we were at a cache that had two TBs in it, and I made the call that we would only take one of the two, so there would be one left behind for other cachers. Big mistake on my part - it went missing just days later. The saddest part of the story was that the TB had come all the way from Serbia and had done lots of travelling before having the misfortune of landing in Williamsburg. We have cached in nearby cities and have not noticed the level of rampant TB theft that seems to happen in Williamsburg. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this phenomenon in their localities, and if anyone else has decided to go the route of 'travel bug crusaders' as we have.

 

Thanks!

 

Michael

Torchwood Four

[+BlueDeuce]

Yes, I have seen flat out travel bug theft. I've also seen the general issue of bugs going missing due to cacher inexperience or unforeseen circumstances. Are you certain bugs are being stolen rather than just being collected and maybe delayed logging? Have you gone back and checked the status of the bug listings after a couple three weeks?

 

Keep in mind I'm asking about the ones you've noticed as recently placed, not the ones that went missing three years ago.

Edited December 13, 2012 by BlueDeuce

[+trowel32]

Since Williamsburg is a tourist destination, it could just be a delay in logging? That happens with trackables in heavy tourist areas. Sometimes they don't get logged until a few weeks later, after the vacationer gets home.

[+Torchwood Four]

Yes, I have seen flat out travel bug theft. I've also seen the general issue of bugs going missing due to cacher inexperience or unforeseen circumstances. Are you certain bugs are being stolen rather than just being collected and maybe delayed logging? Have you gone back and checked the status of the bug listings after a couple three weeks?

 

Keep in mind I'm asking about the ones you've noticed as recently placed, not the ones that went missing three years ago.

 

I'm thinking it's theft, because the same thing happens every time - item is listed as in inventory, but isn't there. The Serbian TB I mentioned as an example vanished via the same means. I would think that if it were people being negligent about logging, there would be at least some situations where a 'retrieve' is logged, even without a subsequent drop attached. But instead, it's always the same story. Trackable gets logged in, and then, more often than not, we get to the cache, and there's nothing there, but the inventory still shows it in. I have two trackables currently watchlisted (including the Serbian one) that I know to have gone missing, and there's been no log activity on them in three months.

[+BlueDeuce]

Understood.

 

I've spent a lot of time reading through missing bug/cache logs. Email me a few cache gc-numbers you would like researched and I'll see if I can pinpoint a trend. Always worth the effort to save even a few bugs.

[+Torchwood Four]

Understood.

 

I've spent a lot of time reading through missing bug/cache logs. Email me a few cache gc-numbers you would like researched and I'll see if I can pinpoint a trend. Always worth the effort to save even a few bugs.

 

Thanks, I'll have a look through our logs and see what I can come up with. The concern that is weighing on our minds, aside from the obvious frustration of routinely heading out to geocaches marked as having bugs present only to find they've been looted is that we're wanting to deploy our first regular-sized cache and have bought some bugs to go along with it, but we're hesitant to do so because we're concerned the same fate will happen to it.

 

I'll see if I can pull together the list of caches that are showing ghost inventory. Some lists have already been cleaned up by their cache owners (due to maint flags we put on the caches when we found inventory discrepancies).

 

The curious thing is that we have not noticed such rampant cases of MIA bugs in the neighboring towns.

[+BlueDeuce]

That's fine. Nothing too detailed, just a few you've encountered. I can expand from there on my own.

Edited December 13, 2012 by BlueDeuce

[+eightwednesday]

I find more often than not I find trackables in caches that they're not listed in and don't find trackables in caches where they supposedly are. Of four trackables I've released into the wild, only 1 made it to it's goal. The other three are missing out there, somewhere. I've observed this all over Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia, the states I most commonly cache in. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's something unique to Williamsburg.

[+MuckSavage]

It's happening here in South Jersey also. There was a trackable in a cache I found on Thanksgiving morning. Sine I didn't have a suitable trade item, I left it. C.O. just emailed me asking if I took it & forgot to log....I know think I should've taken it just to keep it safe. Perhaps move it to a premium member's only cache.

[+wesi]

Yup .. pretty rampant. And I doubt it is simple oversight by newbies, though that definitely also plays a part. About half of my 90 trackables have gone missing, and most of them here in the US. I'm from Switzerland originally, and have started many of my trackables in Europe .. and guess what, hardly any got lost. And for those that did, I actually know what happened to them (cache muggled, etc). Two European cachers who misplaced a coin of mine even contacted me to fess up and to offer a coin of theirs for adoption in compensation. Over here in the US, the TBs and GCs just seem to melt away. It's gotten so bad that I mostly only release basic dog tag trackables in the US these days, and save the coins for Europe. Dog tags have the advantage that it is trivial to release copy tags if the TB keeps disappearing.

 

In my entire history of 2202 finds, there were exactly THREE occasions where a cache contained a trackable that was not listed, but present in the box. On the other hand, there were about 500 occasions where a cache did NOT contain a trackable that was shown in the listing. There's been a gc.com feature request in the queue for like FOREVER to allow experienced cachers to mark a TB that is not present as "missing", but this privilege continues to be reserved for the trackable and cache owners, and hence cachers keep being disappointed from visiting caches that have trackables in the listing, but not in the box.

[+oxford comma]

It's happening here in South Jersey also. There was a trackable in a cache I found on Thanksgiving morning. Sine I didn't have a suitable trade item, I left it. C.O. just emailed me asking if I took it & forgot to log....I know think I should've taken it just to keep it safe. Perhaps move it to a premium member's only cache.

 

wait... I thought trackables weren't swag, so if you take it to move it along you don't have to leave anything.

[+1Husky]

As another South Jersey cacher, I've found many caches where the travel bugs are not there. I've decided that if I find a travel bug or coin in a cache I will take it and try to drop it in a cache that's not easily accessed by the newbie or casual cacher.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Margatecachers

[+Panther&Pine]

It's happening here in South Jersey also. There was a trackable in a cache I found on Thanksgiving morning. Sine I didn't have a suitable trade item, I left it. C.O. just emailed me asking if I took it & forgot to log....I know think I should've taken it just to keep it safe. Perhaps move it to a premium member's only cache.

 

wait... I thought trackables weren't swag, so if you take it to move it along you don't have to leave anything.

Correct, Trackables are not swag. You do not need to swap them or trade for them.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

It's happening here in South Jersey also. There was a trackable in a cache I found on Thanksgiving morning. Sine I didn't have a suitable trade item, I left it. C.O. just emailed me asking if I took it & forgot to log....I know think I should've taken it just to keep it safe. Perhaps move it to a premium member's only cache.

 

wait... I thought trackables weren't swag, so if you take it to move it along you don't have to leave anything.

Correct, Trackables are not swag. You do not need to swap them or trade for them.

Somehow... we just cannot seem to get folks to recognize that "trade" and "trackables" do not belong in the same thought, sentence or even paragraph. Frustrating.

[+Harry Dolphin]

I'll see if I can pull together the list of caches that are showing ghost inventory. Some lists have already been cleaned up by their cache owners (due to maint flags we put on the caches when we found inventory discrepancies).

 

Inventory discrepancy is not a valid reason to put 'NM' on a cache. The cache owner has the ability to make a bug missing, but is not required to.

[+cerberus1]

I'll see if I can pull together the list of caches that are showing ghost inventory. Some lists have already been cleaned up by their cache owners (due to maint flags we put on the caches when we found inventory discrepancies).

 

Inventory discrepancy is not a valid reason to put 'NM' on a cache. The cache owner has the ability to make a bug missing, but is not required to.

Correct.

Seems that newer folks have been doing this a lot lately. Not sure where they got the idea from.

Trackables are a side game and have nothing to do with the hide other than to afford a resting place, to move on to whatever goal their owner has on them.

We do maintenance on our hides and if a trackable is listed, we'll look to see if it's there during maintenance. If it's not, we notify the TB/coin owner first. Sometimes they'll take care of it, other times we're asked to clear it for them.

Another thing we've noticed with newer folks is they're now moving our hides to where they believe it belongs, not returning it where they found it. That "our coords were different" thing.

We often find some of ours in completely different hide spots.

[+cerberus1]

Not a new thing, errors in movement and flat-out theft has been going on since we started. We see them missing from NY to TN, so not limited to your area.

CJ lost more than half of her coins out to (we believe by logs) other's personal collections. The rest are missplaced or missing, occasionally turning up in a hide months later.

Of only two TBs we sent out, one is still moving.

We were upset when it first went to Europe, but while there has traveled without incident for five years. It's now back in the States and though they don't seem to fare as well, we're hoping...

The other ( a high-end one) became someone's key fob (along with a pocket full of others) when he quit caching.

When heading to other's hides, I don't look for trackables in the container anymore (unless asked) and though I do them singly, reading the cache page, never look to see "what's in them".

- I have enough to think about, trying to find hides lately.