Re: Stolen cache response
Quote:
Originally Posted by cz-5
I recently had one of my caches stolen so I posted the following at the spot it was stolen from.
At this spot some selfish little ***** with the mind of a 3 year old stole my Geocache.
If the culprit has the mental capacity to read this “please return it”. You are welcome to keep a trinket of your choice, but you should return the container and its contents to its original place.
If you choose not to comply you are guilty of THEFT and I hope your life is filled with the misery you deserve.
I'll let you know if I get any results from this.
The results you may get from that may not be quite the type you hope for. The cache MAY have just been taken by a passer-thru who stumbled upon the cache .... or a kid who did the same thing.
But there have been several cases which were almost certainly "professional" cache-thieves. They have been known to run an entire route of 6 or 8 caches & steal every single one of them in the same day.
If one of these type did this, then he might also be watching for you to replace it ..... so he can do the same thing again. And leaving this type of note just might tick him off enough to find & steal ALL of your caches, just to show you that he can.
Best possible thing to do is just to take it as a stolen cache, figure out a way to make it more secure than the stolen one was, & then forget about it. It happens to EVERYONE. I have over 100 hides out there & my very first 2 were stolen. That taught me a lesson, which I think I applied very well, since it hasn't happened again since.
But being as when you place a cache, you are pretty much, in most instances, leaving it to some degree at the mercy of the public .... I would personally NEVER do something that might actually back-fire & ENCOURAGE the thiefs to do it again. They can load up the coords of your caches just as easily as a geocacher can. And Lock-N-Locks, Baby Coke Bottles, & Ammo-Cans are quite useful for many other purposes than just a geocache.
Lastly, I'll have to agree with others that insults & bad attitudes towards fellow cachers aren't necessary in our sport, MOST especially in public like this forum. I've been on the receiving end of that myself, & it just isn't a nice way to treat others.