Bogus logs apparently encouraged by Trackable owner

[+Sagefox]

I found a travel bug that had been in a Washington State cache for over three months and during that time the Discover logs have been piling on, most apparently from European cachers. 18 discovered logs since it was placed in the Washington cache and an additional while the trackable was being brought to the states.

 

Clearly this is a case of bogus logging but it seems like the trackable owner has encouraged this activity. The apparent bogus logs started suddenly in April 2014.

 

Does Groundspeak want these situations reported? Do they lock down trackables where the owner does not delete or encourages bogus logs?

 

I wrote this to several of the discoverers:

 

Hello ____,

 

Why did you log travel bug ______ as "Discovered" when you did not actually see it?

 

What I have received so far is:

 

Hello Team Sagefox,

 

about my Discovered log and the logs of some other people:

It seems that the owner of this trackable puts the tracking ID as a sticker or stamp

into physical log books of geocaches he/she has found for other people to discover.

It's his/her choice to do so and my to discover it or not.

 

Best regards, ____

 

Hi Team Sagefox,

 

well, it seems to me that the owner decided to use the same tracking code for his TB stamp. I saw this code in the logbook of another cache and therefor used it to log my discovery.

 

Hi,

 

I had luck, I discovered the TB on a picture in someones log!

So I discovered it because I saw the TB number. :-)

[+Twentse Mug]

Travel bugs are not geocaches. Oh and please feel free to discover any of my TB's, for instance http://coord.info/TB4XDVW with code GH191J.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Twentse Mug

[+cerberus1]

In the help center there's a statement of, "Virtual trackables with virtual logs are not encouraged. It is up to the trackable owner to state if they allow this, and delete any bogus logs"

 

It's theirs...

Guess they don't mind all those emails.

[+Pinkpiggy7]

If it was a bogus entry on a cache I could see a problem, but as it is only a trackable, its only the TB owner who has the extra discover logs, so not sure why anyone else but the TB owner would be concerned.

[+Sagefox]

...It is up to the trackable owner to state if they allow this, and delete any bogus logs"

 

I never would have guessed. I can understand why Groundspeak would not want to get involved with trackable logging. I am glad, actually, that they don't waste their time with it.

 

O.K. then, if that is the case I guess we are firmly in the new era of trackable handling and its gone to a place I can't follow.

 

I used to like reading the logs and seeing where the trackables ACTUALLY went and who handled them. Pawing through pages of bogus Discover and and fake Visit logs is pretty much no fun at all.

 

I stopped handling trackables about a year ago because of the Visit log mess. I did not know virtual Discover logs were allowed and had not paid attention to them until I rescued this travel bug from a remote cache and then noticed the virt logs happening while it was in my possession. This travel bug is only all about bogus Discovers and pages of took-it-tos so it feels like I didn't rescue it from anything.

[+cerberus1]

I used to like reading the logs and seeing where the trackables ACTUALLY went and who handled them. Pawing through pages of bogus Discover and and fake Visit logs is pretty much no fun at all.

Yeah...

Pretty-much the same here.

We only just recently logged two after some time away from this side-game.

One was apart in pieces it's first cache placed, one was switched with another and in the wrong cache.

[+NanCycle]

If it was a bogus entry on a cache I could see a problem, but as it is only a trackable, its only the TB owner who has the extra discover logs, so not sure why anyone else but the TB owner would be concerned.

 

Also anyone who might have that trackable on their watch list--it would come off of my WL forthwith.