Stolen Caches

[+mrsr71]

Someone is stealing my placed caches and I believe I know who the culprit is. I won’t mention it here. Is there a way to block this thief from seeing my new approved placements? If I can’t, I’ll have to take other measures I won’t mention here as well. Thief’s suck 😡

[+Max and 99]

1 hour ago, mrsr71 said:

Someone is stealing my placed caches and I believe I know who the culprit is. I won’t mention it here. Is there a way to block this thief from seeing my new approved placements? If I can’t, I’ll have to take other measures I won’t mention here as well. Thief’s suck 😡

Over and over and over we see this on the forum. It's probably a muggle. 

No, you can't block them from seeing your caches since it's a public listing.  Setting it as PM is the closest option. 

[+OCamera]

There was a geocache thief in our area a few years ago.  This person called himself/herself the "Joker".  This person would either muggle all the contents and leave a Joker card behind or vandalize the cache container (generally micros or small containers that didn't hold swag) and write "Joker" and draw a face on the container.  I can't remember if they were ever caught.  I, personally, think it was a disgruntled geocacher.  There were a couple of geocaches that required a TOTT.  Also, judging from the way the geocache was placed, it was no accidental find by a muggle. 

[+Ragnemalm]

When an area is plagued this way, it can help to make all caches premium, just for a while. Systematic saboteurs might check the map for caches to steal. We had that problem here and after making everything premium, the thefts stopped. The saboteur probably praised itself for its victory (or something) and went on to doing something else (like growing up?) and we could go back to normal.

[SnowMarmet]

Wow, I didnt know people did this.. Why do people do it.. 

[+cerberus1]

19 hours ago, SnowMarmet said:

Wow, I didnt know people did this.. Why do people do it.. 

 

When we started, an ammo can maggot was working the same time.   Even did high terrain caches.  We caught him.

His claim was the hobby was littering... 

We caught him again a few years later when he was working for our game commission. All of the other 2/3rds caches were taken.

The other 2/3rds went to the PGC HQ in our capitol for a meeting with another cacher to have this nonsense straightened out, and get the hobby actually listed as an "other use".

He again worked the "littering" angle, but couldn't explain why all the plastic caches out there weren't.  

He was removed from his position, and last I heard he's in another state now...

 - There was one from NY in 2010 who felt similar, and he was even taken to court over it.

 

Another years later near us took caches of others in his area with a tantrum when they pooh-poohed the idea that he was to be their "president".

But most we found though were newbs who never read how the hobby's played, thinking they're supposed to "rehide" them, or they're taken by bratty kids who just like to be bratty kids.