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When cheating hurts more than just the cheater


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A couple of weeks ago, an Ohio cacher posted a bunch of finds on a long list of caches in Michigan, most of them with the exact same message:

 

"I went on Vacation! got almost 30 some caches. Nice Cache took about 30 min. Just logging all at the Same Time."

 

The irritating thing is that several of the caches logged with this note were multi (or just plain challenging) caches, which had taken others several hours to find...or worse yet, on caches which appeared to be missing, since several recent No Find logs had been posted. icon_rolleyes.gif

 

I'm convinced that this cacher didn't actually find ANY of these caches, since not a single log mentioned anything about his actual experience seeking the cache; and more to the point, a good number of the caches were checked and verified that no log was left in the actual logbook.

 

I've heard the statement that it's best to simply ignore cheaters like these, since geocaching isn't a competition, and they are only hurting themselves. But when a person's false log could give potential finders an incorrect assumption that a non-existant cache is actually there, or that a very challenging cache is a simple walk in the park, it goes beyond hurting just themselves.

 

And in this particular case, the scenario gets worse. Not only did this cacher post a few dozen (allegedly) fake finds, he also posted three new cache hides...all three of which have been searched for, but not found. I personally wasted over an hour and a half, driving out of my way and looking for a cache that most likely never existed in the first place. icon_mad.gif

 

While I don't condone cheating of any kind, I understand that there are people out there who like to boost their find counts. And maybe those cheaters don't consider that their logs could cause others to search for caches that they otherwise wouldn't have wasted their time on. But why someone would pretend to place caches that they know will be a complete waste of time to anyone who searches for them (and that their hoaxes will become very apparent when NONE of the hidden caches are found) is beyond my comprehension. icon_confused.gif

 

The weirdest part of this whole story is that this isn't a new cacher who created a user name just to play this trick on us all. This person has placed several previous legitimate caches, that are still in place and being found.

 

Another interesting twist to this story is that, before leaving for vacation myself (to the same area as several of his finds), I e-mailed the cacher in question, to ask for tips on the caches that he found that I had previously suspected were missing, and for descriptions of the cache containers he had hidden his new caches in. (I didn't want to outright accuse the person of logging fake finds, so I thought this would be a good way to see if he could give me any details of actual finds.) In response to my inquiry, I got an e-mail from the guy's mother, who said he had just left for Marines bootcamp the day before, and that he would be unavailable for several months. (How convenient, huh?)

 

I'm curious how others feel about this situation. Personally, I think this kind of blatant cheating (and deliberate sending of people on wild goose chases) should not be tolerated, and that the user's registration should be revoked. (Sure, I know he could easily sign up for a new account with a different name. But at least the message would be sent that this kind of behavior isn't condoned.)

 

What, if anything, do you think should be done in response to this cacher's actions?

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Let the cache owners decide if they want to leave his logs on their caches. If you have hunted for his hidden caches and feel they aren’t there post a log entry that they should be archived. That alerts other hiders and admin. Then they can make their own decisions. I don’t think that revoking a user account would send much of a message since very few people would actually know of the action. I’ve been through Marine Corps boot camp. If he is the type of person that would cheat and lie about something like geocaching, he’s sure to run afoul of a D.I or two at Parris Island. They will extract a retribution that a fellow cacher never could. I’m chuckling to myself just thinking about it. icon_biggrin.gificon_biggrin.gificon_biggrin.gif

 

http://home.earthlink.net/~whidbeywalk/

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There's a remote possibility someone accessed his account, perhaps he let a friend have access while he was away, or a sibling upset with his leaving. I can remember when my brother left for the Navy years ago, it wasn't easy. Or maybe he was overwhelmed with the thought of leaving and was not thinking straight. Not that any of that makes it excusable...

 

Either way, I say contact all the people whose cache he visited, have them look at their logs and they can verify the vist or lack thereof, and they can make the decision to delete the entry or make a note of the situation. Then I'd post a note on each of his new caches of the situation. Maybe some locals can check them out knowing this might be the case and then ask them to be archived if that's the case.

 

Warning: Objects in GPS may be closer than they appear!

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We have our multicache days and i know that our logs seem to all say a bit of the same thing at times. I do add little things and what we L/T for each cache log so i guess that does tend to show that we had indeed been there.

 

Its a shame that some people have no pride and resort to cheating, but this is a game and i agree with others that its not a big deal usually.

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quote:
In boot camp, the miscreants and sociopaths have a way of floating to the top, where they get very special treatment from the D.I.'s.

 

Having been through USMC boot camp, I feel that this person would be hearing a lot of:

 

"There ain't no cache in that pit boy but we're gonna stay here until you find one."

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< I went on Vacation! got almost 30 some caches. Nice Cache took about 30 min. Just logging all at the Same Time. >

 

I would delete any log I knew to be false, and if I knew the other cache owners, I would encourage them to do the same.

 

[This message was edited by BassoonPilot on August 13, 2002 at 03:55 AM.]

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Lazyboy and MiteyMite wrote:

quote:
When you are doing a multi cache day, it sometimes feels like you are writing exactly the same thing.

 

Nah -- I've found plenty caches so far, and no two of them are exactly alike. Every cache has some story, from who in our group found it, to a misstep on the way, or something that happened on the way there.

 

''Nice cache; cool location. Took a widget, left a thing-a-ma-bob. Thanks for placing it.''

 

Bo-ring. Yawn. Instead, how about

 

''We found the cache almost immediately. We got out of the car, and the GPS pointed immediately to the trail. Within two minutes, I spotted a likely location, looked in there, and (suriprise!) found the cache. My SO was bummed out, because she hasn't had a find yet today. Not much worth taking in there, and the container was leaking a little, but we took a thing-a-ma-bob (maybe our nephew Zaphod will like it) and left a shiny new widget that we got at from the 'Missing Foot' cache earlier in the day. Thanks for taking us to this neat park.''

 

I take my family everywhere, but they always find their way back home.

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quote:
''We found the cache almost immediately. We got out of the car, and the GPS pointed immediately to the trail. Within two minutes, I spotted a likely location, looked in there, and (suriprise!) found the cache. My SO was bummed out, because she hasn't had a find yet today. Not much worth taking in there, and the container was leaking a little, but we took a thing-a-ma-bob (maybe our nephew Zaphod will like it) and left a shiny new widget that we got at from the 'Missing Foot' cache earlier in the day. Thanks for taking us to this neat park.''


I'm afraid that I couldn't fit all this on a stamp

 

Never Squat With Yer Spurs On

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I've taken to signing the paper log in the most brief method - date and name. If I remember, I'll log the time. When I log on the web site, I'll post details.

 

Why? Usually, at the end of a hunt, I'm fairly uncomfortable. Sweaty and thirsty. I try not to drip on the logbook icon_smile.gif And the logbooks are so small. I'm leftie and have bad handwriting. That may sound lame to you, but if you're leftie, you'll probably understand. By the time I get home, I'm usually in much better shape to write more information on the weblog.

 

----------

"Wan't" and "differen't" are not words.

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I dunno, sounds pretty suspicious to me. I was on vacation and logged about 14 caches while there. I made sure to take notes about each find, so when I found a computer I could log them, with appropriate comments. A lazy person may not go through this trouble, so I wouldn't chastise someone who just logged a bunch of caches with the same message.

 

On the other hand, this situation sounds very suspicious and if you don't see this guy's handwritten logs in these caches, then there obviously something fishy going on.

 

"Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing" - Helen Keller

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A lot of the conversation here seems to center on the repetitive log entries. I have had plenty of multiple cache days and yes sometimes it does seem like I am writing the same thing. But the bigger concern is that they placed fake caches. Perhaps you think that they are only cheating themselves by faking a log but what about the caches they say they hid? At least one of them is in an area that is potentially very dangerous, what if someone fell and was seriously hurt looking for a cache that never existed in an area nobody should have been climbing? Are they still only hurting themselves? If you go hunting a real cache you know that someone else has already been there so it is possible, but if I just pop in some coords off a map there are no such assurances.

 

I say delete everything the entered on that day.

 

Rusty...

 

Rusty & Libby's Geocache Page

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I think it's okay that you feel the need to police the caches in your area but ultimately, the cache owner has to be responsible for those posts. If he logged a plundered cache, the question should be, why wasn't the cache archived? If a post is suspicious, the owner should verify the find (god forbid he actually check the log book while performing maintenance) and delete it if necessary.

 

What's lazier ... a repetetive "find" log or a cache owner who doesn't feel like monitoring his tupperware?

 

Please provide a link to the caches of his that you feel are bogus ... I'd like to read the description and your posts.

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quote:
Originally posted by DisQuoi:

Please provide a link to the caches of his that you feel are bogus ... I'd like to read the description and your posts.


 

Check these out...

Marine

 

Wheels

 

Aloha

 

Two of these are 1/1 caches, on the surface it may look as though they are just tough to find. Taken in context with all the false logs (at least 4 have verified they didn't sign physical log) I think it is pretty obvious they are just messing with people.

 

Rusty...

 

Rusty & Libby's Geocache Page

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Yeah, I really hate cheaters, but I think alot of people here are a bit quick to holler "CHEATER" (remember the threads calling BruceS and CCCooper cheaters because "nobody could find that many caches without cheating"?).

I guess since the caches in question have been posted here, we can say the cacher in question is RiceBrothers.

I looked thru a bunch of their finds, and while it would appear they are legitimate cachers, they don't exactly play by the geocaching rules that most of us here do. For example, they picked up a travel bug in one cache. Never logged the bug, and wasn't responding to emails. 5 weeks later they leave it in a terrain 5 cache. Their entire log for that cache consisted of" icon_smile.gif ". Thats it, just a smiley. It's quite possible that they really do it for the most basic of reasons, the thrill of the hunt, and don't even sign the logbook.

I would be interested to hear from some of the Ohio cachers that have found caches he has traded at. Did he sign the log book there?

If we consider that his finds might be legit, would you then still suspect his hides are bogus? Or just hard to find, plundered, or poorly placed?

I don't know RiceBrothers, so maybe I'm totally wrong and he is inflating his finds. Maybe I'm just too trusting, but I just don't think we should be so quick to accuse people of being dishonest.

 

Illegitimus non carborundum!

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quote:
Originally posted by Zuckerruebensirup:

The irritating thing is that several of the caches logged with this note were multi (or just plain challenging) caches, which had taken others several hours to find...or worse yet, on caches which appeared to be missing, since several recent No Find logs had been posted. icon_rolleyes.gif


 

I've spent hours searching for a cache, only to post a not found. Cachers before and after me commented on how easy it was, how they just walked right up to it. This has happened to me at least twice.

I also placed what I and most others considered a fairly difficult cache. One cacher, however, did the whole thing in 30 minutes! (dadgum you, BassoonPilot!)

As I read thru all of RiceBrother's MI logs, I noticed one cache they post as found, that had 2 months of not founds before them, mostly by new (at the time) cachers. This weekend a more experienced cacher found the cache plundered. It's possible that when RiceBrothers logged it it really DID exist, or they too found the plundered remains and logged it as a find (keep that topic in the other threads!).

Sometimes the cachegods smile on us, and we find the cache, sometimes they don't. Some cachers are more interested in stopping to smell the flowers along the way, some just want to see the plastic. Some of us want a challenging adventure, so of us just want a high number of finds next to our name. That's the great thing about geocaching, we can each play the game as we choose, just because someone else chooses to play it different, doesn't make them cheaters.

 

Illegitimus non carborundum!

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I normally don't point fingers in the forums but this guy is over the top. Think of the cache hunters who went home with "no finds" after taking the trouble to get to Mackinaw Island where the caches were allegedly placed. Think of the owners of some VERY challenging multicaches, who read the cryptic "found it in 30 minutes" log.

 

Like Mopar, I also went back and read through other logs out of curiosity. My favorite (?) is at This Cache where the hider describes the fragile nature preserve and rare plants, and other finders describe the beautiful wildflowers and being extra careful approaching the cache site. Then there are the logs left by Rice Brothers and his buddy:

 

quote:
I did catch one thorne bush on the way in or out but made a nice path through them

 

AND

 

Found it. If you want to find it, go soon. There is a 2 to 4 foot trail all the way to the cache that me and a friend made. If you dont go soon, forget it, or bring a machetti. We did it in shorts, no scratches but it took us a while to stomp our way there. Took nothing, Left nothing.


 

Those who plead for us not to trample on any plants while geocaching are probably having heart palpitations.

 

I have already voted in this poll but if I had it to do over again, after reading the additional information, the vote would be to yank the account.

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Daddy, are we there yet? No, .17 to go. Are we there yet? No, .16 to go....."

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quote:
Originally posted by The Leprechauns:

Like Mopar, I also went back and read through other logs out of curiosity. My favorite (?) is at http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=20065 where the hider describes the fragile nature preserve and rare plants, and other finders describe the beautiful wildflowers and being extra careful approaching the cache site. Then there are the logs left by Rice Brothers and his buddy:


Yeah, I saw that too, Lep. icon_frown.gif

Just so it's clear, I'm not agreeing with RiceBrother's style of caching. I don't condone hacking out a trail with a machette. I usually try to find trails do not resort to bushwhacking the second the trail veers 2 degrees.

I am saying that it appears that most of his other logs are about the same as the ones in question. Most of them are "nice cache!" or "found it, took something, left something." Not much else. Looking at that, I can see him pasting the same generic log in for each find. Me, I tend to consider each cache another chapter in my geocaching book, and my logs reflect that. Most of my local cachers probably WISH I just wrote "found it!" hehehe.

 

Illegitimus non carborundum!

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And just so I'M clear, I have no problem with what you wrote, Mopar. I know you're a good cacher. You've offered a logical defense for this cacher's activities. As a lawyer, I can appreciate someone who can look at the facts and construct a good argument. We've just reached different conclusions on this one. Maybe because I've taken the day off to hide a cache with my daughter, I've left my lawyer brain at the office and am reacting with my emotions. icon_biggrin.gif

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Daddy, are we there yet? No, .17 to go. Are we there yet? No, .16 to go....."

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I did look at some of their previous entries. They thought most were tounge-in-cheek but legitimate. They have also placed caches that continue to be found, again no problem. Their activity on July 27 is completely different and goes over the edge.

 

I've said it already but I accept that phony logs are between them and the cache owner but false caches takes it too far.

 

There also comes a point when giving someone the benifit of doubt is not acceptable. I think they crossed that point when they posted a fake 4/4 cache on a ecologically fragile and very steep hillside on Mackinaw Island.

 

Rusty...

 

Rusty & Libby's Geocache Page

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quote:
Originally posted by Rusty:

There also comes a point when giving someone the benifit of doubt is not acceptable. I think they crossed that point when they posted a fake 4/4 cache on a ecologically fragile and very steep hillside on Mackinaw Island.


Well, I see 2 logs on the cache in question. The 1st not found admits the terrain was too tough and didnt get near it. The second mentions a daughter, so i would assume they didn't attempt it either. a 4/4 cache is:

quote:

Difficulty rating: 4

Difficult. A real challenge for the experienced cache hunter - may require special skills or knowledge, or in-depth preparation to find. May require multiple days / trips to complete.

Terrain rating: 4

xperienced outdoor enthusiasts only. (Terrain is probably off-trail. Will have one or more of the following: very heavy overgrowth, very steep elevation (requiring use of hands), or more than a 10 mile hike. May require an overnight stay.)


Sorry, I don't see a 4/4 quality attempt logged there. Until I see a few attempts worthy of a 4/4 logged, I will still give them the benefit of doubt.

 

Illegitimus non carborundum!

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quote:
Originally posted by Team VE:

I'm not commenting on machete wielding geocachers here. Since the thread is about cheating hurting other , I _would_ like to point out that

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=30446

 

_has_ been found. Given what I know of the finders, if they say it's there, it's there...


 

If one is real then they probably all are. With the strangeness of the whole situation I guess the fact they were real didn't seem an option. All of you that said to just give them the benefit of doubt and wait it out were correct. I suppose then that whether they did or did not sign the physical logs for their finds is between them and the cache owner. No action was indeed the best action. I'm going to crawl back under my chair and be quiet now icon_redface.gif

 

Rusty...

 

Rusty & Libby's Geocache Page

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No, "lawyer brain" is not an oxymoron. We have brains, just as lizards do. They are small brains and are cold-blooded, but they are brains just the same.

 

Now, "legal ethics".... THAT'S an oxymoron!!!

 

And pseudo-kudo's to Mopar and other defenders. I still don't approve of this cacher's style but if the "hidden" caches aren't fake, my vote changes back to just deleting any entries in the "found" caches that are not verifiable from the logbook.

 

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Daddy, are we there yet? No, .17 to go. Are we there yet? No, .16 to go....."

 

[This message was edited by The Leprechauns on August 12, 2002 at 02:19 PM.]

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Both Wheels and Aloha have been located. And the cheat for Marine says "Take A Rope or A bike it is a Great View!" and viewing a topo of the area it looks like it could have access from the top of the cliffs via trails or off road biking.

 

They/he was probably out on one last day of freedom and fun with is buddies and wanted to hit as many caches as he could before leaving for what could be a very long time. If it was me I would just do a short hello note in the logs and then off to the next one. The same goes with his logs on the web pages, it's alot faster to write once and paste many times than to write an individual note for each find.

 

eagle1.jpg

If you fly like an Eagle the Turkeys don't bug you!!!

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I guess its inevitable that in any pleasurable endeavor, some idiot will show up to ruin the fun for the legitimate participants. I think the logs should be deleted by the cache hiders and the suspect new caches he placed be archived until someone actually goes out and verifies that they're not real.

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quote:
Originally posted by Lyra:

I guess its inevitable that in any pleasurable endeavor, some idiot will show up to ruin the fun for the legitimate participants. I think the logs should be deleted by the cache hiders and the suspect new caches he placed be archived until someone actually goes out and verifies that they're not real.


 

Uhm, did you actually READ anything before you posted?

2 out of the 3 caches you want archived HAVE BEEN FOUND already. THEY ARE REAL.

Chances are, since he really was in the area to place the caches, he also really did find all those caches. Jeeze, if you want to be the cache police, at least get all the facts before making the arrest

 

Illegitimus non carborundum!

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Wow, it looks like it turned out to be a major coincidence between the lack of signed logbooks and a couple of unsucessful cache hunts. icon_eek.gif

 

I'm glad to see that this guy wasn't playing us for fools. (Obviously I did a fine job of playing the fool without his help.) icon_biggrin.gif

 

I want to extend a formal apology to RiceBrothers for doubting that his caches were real, and to everyone else for erroneously fueling your suspicions about a fellow geocacher.

 

Also, something I got to thinking about after I unsuccesfully looked for his log in a couple of caches I found. His online cache finds say that he was on vacation and was just logging the finds. Maybe the actual found dates were pretty old, and I didn't look far enough back in the log books...and maybe those finds on the seemingly-missing caches were BEFORE the unsuccessful seekers hunted for them. (Or like myself in the case of the Aloha cache, maybe they just couldn't find the cache, even though it was there the whole time.)

 

Even though I am having to feast on Crow Sandwiches, I am glad to see that RiceBrothers didn't place fake caches. My faith in fellow geocachers has been measurably restored. icon_smile.gif

 

Hopefully this will be a lesson to us all, that coindences ARE possible, and that we shouldn't jump to conclusions too early.

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