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People not logging!


n4dlt

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Recently I watched a casher find one of my hides. He sign the log and took the geo-coin. But, to this day has still not logged the find. Also, I've heard from others that there are people that just look at the listings and go out and "steal" the geo-coins/travel bugs and keep them for their personal collections, never logging the find or the coins.

 

Why do people do this? This type of behavior really spoils the fun for the whole world. Dam, if you want to collect geo-coins then just buy your own. Don't take them from caches and just keep them, thats stealing, after all, the coins/TBs are OWNED by someone.

 

There is nothing I hate more than driving 50 to 100 miles to a cach in search of a coin to log and its not in the cach as listed because someone looked at the list and went and stole the coin. Come on people, grow up!

 

Just saying....

 

Ticked off geocacher,

N4DLT

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I might humbly suggest that geocaching and trackables may not be the best games for you if it creates this much angst.

 

Lots of cachers find caches and move trackables without logging their activities online - been that way as long as I have been around.

 

Yes some thing get stolen - abut 80% of my TBs are gone. Just don't put out anything you can't stand to lose. It happens in society and some of those folks become cachers - not surprising.

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Recently I watched a casher find one of my hides. He sign the log and took the geo-coin. But, to this day has still not logged the find. Also, I've heard from others that there are people that just look at the listings and go out and "steal" the geo-coins/travel bugs and keep them for their personal collections, never logging the find or the coins.

 

Why do people do this? This type of behavior really spoils the fun for the whole world. Dam, if you want to collect geo-coins then just buy your own. Don't take them from caches and just keep them, thats stealing, after all, the coins/TBs are OWNED by someone.

 

There is nothing I hate more than driving 50 to 100 miles to a cach in search of a coin to log and its not in the cach as listed because someone looked at the list and went and stole the coin. Come on people, grow up!

 

Just saying....

 

Ticked off geocacher,

N4DLT

I don't believe there's a rule that states someone must log their find immediately. There is a rule that states one must sign the log. If it bothers you that much, why not send a kind e-mail to "the finder but not logger cacher". You have his name, he signed the log.

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People who sign logs typically don't steal the travelers. Not enough anonymity. If you know for a fact the person took the coin, maybe they mentioned it in the log, after three weeks you could certainly send them a friendly email offering assistance to get to into their inventory.

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Recently I watched a casher find one of my hides. He sign the log and took the geo-coin. But, to this day has still not logged the find.

...but what about the coin? Did you check its trackable page to see if they logged it out of the cache?

 

P.S. The owner of that coin in your Shallow Creek cache may not appreciate your photo showing the unique, secret tracking code. You should consider removing it or editing the photo.

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The biggest offenders tend to be the mega-cachers with lots of finds. They'll log dozens and dozens in a day and they don't log them on the site. Personally, why I'm purposely not one that goes for thousands of caches (despite being around for a long time). I have logged all my finds, usually within 24 hours. But I don't really worry if others haven't. Worrying too much about others just makes the game less enjoyable.

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Why do people do this? This type of behavior really spoils the fun for the whole world. Dam, if you want to collect geo-coins then just buy your own. Don't take them from caches and just keep them, thats stealing, after all, the coins/TBs are OWNED by someone.

We like to think of the GC community as one big happy family (families argue at times too :)). We tend to trust those in the family with our "valuables" (trackables). In reality, however, The GC community more or less is a representation of the society as a whole. There are going to be people in society that do not have the same values as you.

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Maybe they just don't know that they are supposed to/how to log trackables. Just like you don't know the proper ways of moving a cache....Not that that's okay, but it's a possibility.

 

And there is no rule that you have to log your finds online. That brings up the possibility that it may have been a cacher that previously found the cache and came back to get the coin. That's why there was no log, and unless you are the owner of the coin or are watching the coin you won't know if it's been moved...

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The biggest offenders tend to be the mega-cachers with lots of finds. They'll log dozens and dozens in a day and they don't log them on the site. Personally, why I'm purposely not one that goes for thousands of caches (despite being around for a long time). I have logged all my finds, usually within 24 hours. But I don't really worry if others haven't. Worrying too much about others just makes the game less enjoyable.

 

I disagree. The power cachers are more likely to use the GSAK publishing tool so that they can keep their numbers straight. I know of 1-2 active cachers who are a bit behind on logging, but most others I know try to keep up to date. I think the biggest 'ghost' cachers who find them but do not log online are smart phone app users who are occasional cachers.

 

To the OP, you didn't define recently. If it's only been 2-4 days I wouldn't stress it. Not everyone logs their activity every day. It's possible that they were on a road trip and will do all their logging when they return home. But if it's been over a week, you can drop them a friendly email reminding them that they found your cache but seem to have forgotten to log it. Assuming there is an account name to match what the sig on the log was. I wouldn't get too worked up about the trackable, you have no way of knowing if there is an honest delay, or if they are coin thieves. And if they are then they probably didn't sign the log with a real handle.

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I disagree. The power cachers are more likely to use the GSAK publishing tool so that they can keep their numbers straight. I know of 1-2 active cachers who are a bit behind on logging, but most others I know try to keep up to date. I think the biggest 'ghost' cachers who find them but do not log online are smart phone app users who are occasional cachers.
I don't disagree, because I'm sure most do keep them up. But I have read throughout these forums and meeting many myself, it is fairly common. May not be rampant, but it does happen enough to be noticeable.
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You're both wrong. But the fact remains that if you want to do something about it, other than bitching, you have to at least verify that someone picked it up before you accuse them of anything. Everything else is recovery. And you better be nice about it.

 

 

bd

Edited by BlueDeuce
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The biggest offenders tend to be the mega-cachers with lots of finds. They'll log dozens and dozens in a day and they don't log them on the site. Personally, why I'm purposely not one that goes for thousands of caches (despite being around for a long time). I have logged all my finds, usually within 24 hours. But I don't really worry if others haven't. Worrying too much about others just makes the game less enjoyable.

usually mega cachers don't take the time to look for anything other then the logsheet. I know one who sometimes picks up some and then writes down the code to discover and hands the trackable to someone else. Also I have found trackables that haven't been logged in years.

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The biggest offenders tend to be the mega-cachers with lots of finds. They'll log dozens and dozens in a day and they don't log them on the site. Personally, why I'm purposely not one that goes for thousands of caches (despite being around for a long time). I have logged all my finds, usually within 24 hours. But I don't really worry if others haven't. Worrying too much about others just makes the game less enjoyable.

usually mega cachers don't take the time to look for anything other then the logsheet. I know one who sometimes picks up some and then writes down the code to discover and hands the trackable to someone else. Also I have found trackables that haven't been logged in years.

 

I really hate the use of the word "usually".

 

I know a lot of cachers with low numbers who different styles and interests. And the same goes for cachers with high numbers.

 

We do a lot of caching and get lots of caches. We love to grab and move Trackables and try and give them mileage and get them closer to their goals. We once took over 50 trackables to CA and came back home with 50 others. We never discover trackables so we dont take pictures of the back of cars or of peoples arms. We have gotten in trouble with cache owners during our trips when we cleaned out their caches, because they wanted the TB's in there to be discovered by locals.

 

With regard to loggin online, we log the same day using GSAK or the field notes on GC.com

 

PAul

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Yep, my first trackable (well one of the two, I put two 'racing' ones out at the same time, in the same cache) was taken by a user, zero cache finds, zero anything 'except' logging my trackable. That's it, nothing since, so likely gone. I dunno, even if you didn't know much about this game, I still feel a user should have enough common sense to realize they picked up something that obviously has something else to it (ie: metal tags with codes hanging off it) for example. I know it's part of the game but still.

 

The other thing that drives me nuts is seeing caches with tons of DNFs, needs maintenance logs, etc and nothing done about it, especially after seeing that the CO is still active in the geocaching world, still making finds, etc. Have the decency to at least disable it or take 5 mins to check on it, surely you could do that sometime in the half year, 3 years it's been stuck with issues. Anyway, rant over....

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once I spend halve a year emailing to a cacher on the other side of the globe, who took a coin of mine

and just did not feel like geocaching the day after he picked up the coin and got home,

it took him halve a year to manage to put it into another cache.

Edited by OZ2CPU
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I tend to use the "fire and forget" method of putting TB's into circulation. Once I drop them my time with them is over. If I get a log entry I read it but rarely does it say much of anything. The bugs we pick up we move along and dip in caches as we go until we drop it off somewhere. If my bug goes missing for a extended period of time I mark it missing to get it out of the cache it was last reported to be in. If it is in the hands of a cacher and seems to be missing I don't e-mail them or do anything else. I cache for my enjoyment. Telling others how to enjoy their hobby isn't enjoyable to me. If they like my bug and want to keep it so be it. If they log it "properly" so be it. I don't really care what they do. For me TB's are a bit like slot machines...it doesn't matter if I drop money into a slot machine or the toilet when I pull the handle I don't expect to get it back. My wife and I enjoy finding TB's doesn't matter if the cache shows a TB or not it is always a nice bonus when we find one and we keep an eye on our inventory to make sure we don't loose one. Twice we have found a bug on our list and we didn't have it...we searched and found them. One micro coin under the seat and one TB in the Grandkids toy box. We hope we never really loose one but I am not staying up nights worried about my bugs out there. Maybe they will land in the hands of child who thinks it is the most amazing treasure they ever found and never be seen again, maybe they will be accidently dropped and land in the fast food bag and never be seen again, maybe they will be dropped into a cache and logged who knows what their fate really is. No matter what happens to my bugs I will cache on!!

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I retreived a trackable once that was not listed in the cache inventory. I posted a note on the trackable page naming the cache from which I had retreived the trackable. Got a puzzled PM from the cacher who had dropped it and didn't know how to remove it from his inventory. Polite lesson issued and we now have one more cacher who knows how to use the tools. It's not always about stealing, although that does happen as well. One of the reasons caching appeals toi me is because it allows me to join a community and participate face-to-face as little or as much as I desire. Unfortunately, that also menas we have to educate our fellow cacher from time to time.

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There is nothing I hate more than driving 50 to 100 miles to a cache in search of a coin to log and its not in the cache as listed because someone looked at the list and went and stole the coin. Come on people, grow up!

 

How true. I have been caching for about 2 and half months and I experienced it a good few times so far. Even my trackable was stolen - I have send it to Australia to some geocacher who promised me to drop it into one of their local caches. It has been a month now and my trackable is still in his inventory. I wrote an e-mail, but he didn't even respond. So there is no solution to this really, as people with wrong attitude will surely spoil the good fun sooner or later.

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I tend to use the "fire and forget" method of putting TB's into circulation. Once I drop them my time with them is over. If I get a log entry I read it but rarely does it say much of anything. The bugs we pick up we move along and dip in caches as we go until we drop it off somewhere. If my bug goes missing for a extended period of time I mark it missing to get it out of the cache it was last reported to be in. If it is in the hands of a cacher and seems to be missing I don't e-mail them or do anything else. I cache for my enjoyment. Telling others how to enjoy their hobby isn't enjoyable to me. If they like my bug and want to keep it so be it. If they log it "properly" so be it. I don't really care what they do. For me TB's are a bit like slot machines...it doesn't matter if I drop money into a slot machine or the toilet when I pull the handle I don't expect to get it back. My wife and I enjoy finding TB's doesn't matter if the cache shows a TB or not it is always a nice bonus when we find one and we keep an eye on our inventory to make sure we don't loose one. Twice we have found a bug on our list and we didn't have it...we searched and found them. One micro coin under the seat and one TB in the Grandkids toy box. We hope we never really loose one but I am not staying up nights worried about my bugs out there. Maybe they will land in the hands of child who thinks it is the most amazing treasure they ever found and never be seen again, maybe they will be accidently dropped and land in the fast food bag and never be seen again, maybe they will be dropped into a cache and logged who knows what their fate really is. No matter what happens to my bugs I will cache on!!

+1

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I might humbly suggest that geocaching and trackables may not be the best games for you if it creates this much angst.

This is a discussion forum, is it not? While the OP's chosen topic might be one that's been discussed on many occasions here, I don't think it warrants such a reply. His emotional reaction has nothing to do with whether this game is for him or not. In fact, if it's a hobby he thoroughly enjoys and is becoming passionate about, what's wrong with getting emotional about this type of theft? He's new to the forum and fairly new to caching. It's likely he's not aware that such theft is, unfortunately, common in this game. There are plenty of topics in this forum based on a cacher's frustrations with certain aspects of this game. If you're going to say it's not for this person, then you'd have to say it's not for all of the rest too.

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I might humbly suggest that geocaching and trackables may not be the best games for you if it creates this much angst.

This is a discussion forum, is it not? While the OP's chosen topic might be one that's been discussed on many occasions here, I don't think it warrants such a reply. His emotional reaction has nothing to do with whether this game is for him or not. In fact, if it's a hobby he thoroughly enjoys and is becoming passionate about, what's wrong with getting emotional about this type of theft? He's new to the forum and fairly new to caching. It's likely he's not aware that such theft is, unfortunately, common in this game. There are plenty of topics in this forum based on a cacher's frustrations with certain aspects of this game. If you're going to say it's not for this person, then you'd have to say it's not for all of the rest too.

 

Well said, and, may I add, there was nothing humble about that suggestion.

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Being new myself i see the fear of putting your hopes (and cash) into a box in the woods and hoping strangers with open access will help move it around without compensation.

 

Sounds like it should never happen when put like that huh???

 

But it does.... :)

 

One thing I do think will be bad for the game is the value of particular coins going up because someone decided they are "collectable". One this becomes more common u will have ebayers seaarches caches for coins to resell to other ebayers who have not intention of ever caching, just collecting.

 

I made a promise to myself to spend some money on this hobby in the hopes of seeing some cool coperative human behavior, if not, its only money lost. We have actually just ordered some personalized collectable swag for people to just take.

I figure if 1 trackable makes it out of 20 , you should be amazed and thankful! Working on my 20 now, 2 out and on there way!

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