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missing tbs in your area


AKACRider

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In my area, probably 4 out of 5 caches say they have 3 or 4 tbs in it, but when you g r t there there are none, and in the one that does have some in it might have one or two, its been forever since I saw a cache invintory that was right. Does anyone else havethese issues in their area?

 

I think if you read over the geocoin and travel bug forums, you will see that the situation is quite normal for most areas around the world.

 

Finding a trackable in a cache, whether it's in the inventory or not, is quite surprising nowadays.

 

 

B.

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This is one of the most discussed singular topics in these forums. You can check 'em all, not just in the Travel Bug forum, either.

 

Lots of reasons why--

- Improper logging*

- CO's not wanting the responsibility or knowing they can mark them as 'missing'

- TO's not wanting or knowing they can mark them as 'missing'

- TO's no longer geocaching

 

*Not necessarily theft, either. Geocoins are more prone to theft than are Travel Bugs.

I noticed one the other day, by an inexperienced cacher... their cache log said "took TB" while their trackable log was a Discovery, not a Retrieval...

When they go to log it as Placed, they won't be able to as they don't have it in their inventory (it is still listed in that cache).

Sure, they can correct it, but most who do that goof rarely do. Sad...

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Yea, ive got one bug with a goal, and its no following it at all,its just walking around, i bought some more tbs. Out of the 3 im only releasing one, a cache starter bug, the other two, discoveries for events, the walking ammo can, and AKACRider has got too many keys or somthing. Theyll be activated after vacation, but Im a little worried for the one im going to release.

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Yea, ive got one bug with a goal, and its no following it at all,its just walking around, i bought some more tbs. Out of the 3 im only releasing one, a cache starter bug, the other two, discoveries for events, the walking ammo can, and AKACRider has got too many keys or somthing. Theyll be activated after vacation, but Im a little worried for the one im going to release.

You shouldn't send of anything you aren't prepared to lose, once they leave your hands they are out of your control.

Of course I've also managed to lose several of my own trackables... I'm sure they'll turn up eventually.

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Yea, ive got one bug with a goal, and its no following it at all,its just walking around, i bought some more tbs. Out of the 3 im only releasing one, a cache starter bug, the other two, discoveries for events, the walking ammo can, and AKACRider has got too many keys or somthing. Theyll be activated after vacation, but Im a little worried for the one im going to release.

You shouldn't send of anything you aren't prepared to lose, once they leave your hands they are out of your control.

Of course I've also managed to lose several of my own trackables... I'm sure they'll turn up eventually.

 

Yea sure, I was just curious what people expirience, and its 5 bucks plus the hitchiker, not going to kill me.

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Yea, ive got one bug with a goal, and its no following it at all,its just walking around, i bought some more tbs. Out of the 3 im only releasing one, a cache starter bug, the other two, discoveries for events, the walking ammo can, and AKACRider has got too many keys or somthing. Theyll be activated after vacation, but Im a little worried for the one im going to release.

You shouldn't send of anything you aren't prepared to lose, once they leave your hands they are out of your control.

Of course I've also managed to lose several of my own trackables... I'm sure they'll turn up eventually.

 

Yea sure, I was just curious what people expirience, and its 5 bucks plus the hitchiker, not going to kill me.

Five bucks may buy a dog tag TB, but that would not cover more than shipping on a good geocoin with it's own icon.

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That's the right attitude -- losing a TB is the cost of playing the game. Lots of reasons they don't show up in inventory. Unfortunately, my son and I were responsible for one of them. We found a cache with 3 TBs that were placed by the same person and we each took one. I dropped mine off and about a month and a half later found that not had my son not dropped his. He hadn't even logged the find and the grab. He had started a new job in a distant city and hadn't had time to mess with it. So I grabbed it and explained the situation in my log and promised to drop it in a cold weather active cache. A couple weeks later I went to do so but when I got the TB out of the console I dropped it and it fell to place where the seat belt mounts to the floor. I could touch it but not retrieve it. I gave up and figured I would get it at home with some tools. Could not find it. I spent a long time several times hunting for it and never could spot it. About the time I decided I was going to be offering a replacement I dropped something and when I reached down to get it, there was the TB in plain sight. Best I can figure I must have got enough purchase on it to flip it up (and not realize it) and it got up in the seat for a spell. Anyway, it was lost in my possession for about 6 weeks and an equal amount of time in my son's.

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In my area, probably 4 out of 5 caches say they have 3 or 4 tbs in it, but when you g r t there there are none, and in the one that does have some in it might have one or two, its been forever since I saw a cache invintory that was right. Does anyone else havethese issues in their area?

No, I don't see that very often anywhere, but definitely not in my area to the east of San Francisco Bay. Sure, TBs are sometimes listed but not present, but not very often, and a couple times I've see TB hotels where I don't think the owners were paying attention and several missing TBs were listed. But day-to-day, I don't see many TBs at all, listed or not. I'm not sure, but I doubt that's because TBs go missing less often around here, but rather because people are more likely to report them missing, perhaps encouraging COs and TOs to mark them missing more often to clean up the inventory.

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Yea, ive got one bug with a goal, and its no following it at all,its just walking around, i bought some more tbs. Out of the 3 im only releasing one, a cache starter bug, the other two, discoveries for events, the walking ammo can, and AKACRider has got too many keys or somthing. Theyll be activated after vacation, but Im a little worried for the one im going to release.

You shouldn't send of anything you aren't prepared to lose, once they leave your hands they are out of your control.

Of course I've also managed to lose several of my own trackables... I'm sure they'll turn up eventually.

 

Yea sure, I was just curious what people expirience, and its 5 bucks plus the hitchiker, not going to kill me.

Five bucks may buy a dog tag TB, but that would not cover more than shipping on a good geocoin with it's own icon.

 

I'm willing to lose a few tags. Coins, not so much. So far, I haven't released any coin I've had. I've seen a few people drop proxy coins...basically full-color scans or photos of both sides of the coin, complete with tracking number, then dropping it off. Seemed like a good idea, particularly with the prices of coins these days.

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In my area, probably 4 out of 5 caches say they have 3 or 4 tbs in it, but when you g r t there there are none, and in the one that does have some in it might have one or two, its been forever since I saw a cache invintory that was right. Does anyone else havethese issues in their area?

The same is happening to me I grabbed one and took it overseas and then spent a large chunk of my families holiday dragging them around to find caches with trackables listed so that I could take one back home across the ditch and didn't find one.

Thought it was an Ozzie thing and then since then I have had even worse luck in NZ. Seems its an unfortunate and frustrating problem. Sad for those who have sent them out on the adventures in the first place.

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Such a shame when you do get to a cache as listed with TB's and none in the container. We noticed yesterday when I did a maintenance on one of our caches, I didn't see any TB's in the box but the site is showing as having 2 in it. Great to read on here of TB's that turn up months or years after being MIA. Gives me hope on the ones I have sent out and never heard of again, ? still I suppose it is the chance you take, certainly put me off sending TB's out. I love finding one in a cache to move on though. ?

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Such a shame when you do get to a cache as listed with TB's and none in the container. We noticed yesterday when I did a maintenance on one of our caches, I didn't see any TB's in the box but the site is showing as having 2 in it. Great to read on here of TB's that turn up months or years after being MIA. Gives me hope on the ones I have sent out and never heard of again, ? still I suppose it is the chance you take, certainly put me off sending TB's out. I love finding one in a cache to move on though. ?

As the cache owner you have the power to mark those two TB's missing from your cache. If more cache owners voluntarily did this, then fewer inventories would be inaccurate.

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Has anyone come up with a way to release trackables and then only allow them to be retrieved (or discovered) by cachers who email the owner for an additional hint perhaps after having logged the nearby cache first? In other words, something like a multi-cache where you would have to log the cache and then email the TO or CO before you could get the coordinates for the container with the actual trackable?

 

It seems that this way, each cacher would be known to have accessed the coin last and would be less likely to abscond with it, whether on purpose or by mistake of course. They would do the same thing, at the next location, perhaps placing it about 20paces or a number of feet or seconds to the West or North of the subsequent cache. It would probably be best as some special kind of natural container. Something like this:

 

beehive-hanging-from-a-branch-isolated-on-white-background_143060434.jpg

 

lol ANY other ideas?

 

So I am wondering if other folks have thought much about this...All this from someone who is not a premium member yet and who only has 60 finds, I've been disappointed dozens of times, only handled 2 coins, one tb, and two proxies(one was found in a "dungeon safe" in a house my cohort was working on). I don't quite know how to log that one :unsure: . Do you think my idea would work? Has it been tried? or something similar? I would love to retrieve another geocoin someday. B)

 

sophydra in WNY

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The area where I live is a TB desert. Hides seldom have travel bugs. I have learned the hard way. I put my tb's in premium members only tb motels. There is a good one in Pendleton, OR. and another in St. Regis MT. I am searching for a good TB Motel in the Nampa/Caldwell, ID area. Any suggestions?

 

What is a TB motel ?

It is a geocache that is specified for the picking up and dropping off of trackables. Usually, they have TB Hotel, Prison, Motel, etc. in their name. Look up this forum for more details on what to do if you find one. Hope this helps! :)

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I like the new TB tags with the QR code. With all of the phone caching nowadays, it makes sense, and will hopefully lead to more accurate logging. I've released about five of them recently...I'll see how it goes. Of course, I left them in TB hotels...

 

My area has its share of missing trackables; it's maybe a 50/50 chance that it's there. Maybe a bit better than that, really. If I'm going to cache and make finding trackables part of the outing, of course I'm sure to check recent logs for each trackable. I haven't been disappointed in a while, actually. Have picked up about a dozen in the last couple weeks.

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If you do visit a cache and discover that the listed trackable isn't there, mention that in your log on the cache or, even better, log a note to the missing trackable's page. Then, the cache owner or the trackable owner will be alerted to the need to mark the trackable "missing" (if they know how). The best logs are the ones that say that the owner should consider marking it missing.

 

If all else fails, a reviewer may also mark a trackable missing. After the batch of caches in my region that I just looked through because I'm having trouble falling asleep, I marked seven trackables missing because a lot of time had passed since they were dropped, and at least one log mentioned they didn't see any trackables in the cache. That brought my total number of trackables "marked missing" up to 5,468.

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... That brought my total number of trackables "marked missing" up to 5,468.

 

It's great that you do this.

 

I would like to do this too.

 

Please can I apply to be an official Trackable Terminator? I would happily spend some time each evening eating pizza (as I am at present) and looking through UK caches to find those ghost trackables and releasing them from their limbo state to float off into "Unknown Location". I don't want any Reviewer Powers, just Trackable Exorcism powers.

 

Please?

 

MrsB :)

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... That brought my total number of trackables "marked missing" up to 5,468.

 

It's great that you do this.

 

I would like to do this too.

 

Please can I apply to be an official Trackable Terminator? I would happily spend some time each evening eating pizza (as I am at present) and looking through UK caches to find those ghost trackables and releasing them from their limbo state to float off into "Unknown Location". I don't want any Reviewer Powers, just Trackable Exorcism powers.

 

Please?

 

MrsB :)

You could write to Geocaching HQ and volunteer your services. Be sure to mention any special connections you might have. :anicute:

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This is a common issue around here. However we are a larger tourist market and many trackables are picked up by folks on vacation who don't log caches until they return home. Sometimes 2-3 weeks later.

 

On the flip side, we have had several go missing ourselves, but current count is 27 still moving, and only 14 missing. The ones we have noticed go missing seem to happen at events. When we are out and find a cache where the inventory doesn't match, we notate on the cache log; and also notate on the tracakable that it wasn't there. That way hopefully the CO (like we do) will perform maintenance on the cache and verify they aren't there and thus mark them missing.

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I was reading this forum, and read that geocache owners should take responsibility for the TB's in our geocaches, so I went out and found a geocache of mine that had a TB in it which wasn't logged into that cache, so I grabbed it and logged it into the cache. A day or so later I learned that this TB had visited a hundred or so caches between the time it was picked up and dropped off into my geocache, the geocacher was on a multi-day geocaching adventure and was waiting to get home to log all her finds. Nuts!

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I was reading this forum, and read that geocache owners should take responsibility for the TB's in our geocaches, so I went out and found a geocache of mine that had a TB in it which wasn't logged into that cache, so I grabbed it and logged it into the cache. A day or so later I learned that this TB had visited a hundred or so caches between the time it was picked up and dropped off into my geocache, the geocacher was on a multi-day geocaching adventure and was waiting to get home to log all her finds. Nuts!

Too bad the cacher didn't avoid this problem by mentioning in the log that they were taking the TB on a tour and wouldn't be able to log it until 4/17/15, or whenever.

 

Still, not serious. Surely they wrote down the TB's code, so when they notice they don't have it, they can grab it again and log it correctly, including the drop back into your cache.

 

The main thing for you, though, is that you didn't do anything wrong. You just updated the database to reflect currently accurate information.

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