Who is "The Cache Bandit"?

[paris1time]

I recently did some maintenance on a cache and when I removed the old log I noticed that someone using “The Cache Bandit” logged it.

I noticed that the find was never logged online.

The cache was logged as found the same day by another cacher.

I found a profile on GC.com for someone using "The Cache Bandit" and sent them a message and an e-mail to the other cacher that found the cache on the same day.

The user using the screen name "The Cache Bandit" was from Michigan and replied by saying they had never been here.

The other cacher logging a find on the same date has also replied and said that it wasn't anyone with them and did not know who they were.

I was just curious if anyone else has had their physical logs logged by "The Cache Bandit".

I guess since they didn't muggle the cache they must be friendly.

paris1time

[OldRiverRunner]

I've never seen a log by The Cache Bandit, but occasionally, I will see someone sign the log in a cache and never log the find online. Some people prefer to play the game that way.

The only problem I have with it is that they're not providing any feedback to the cache owner that his cache has been found. Each cache owner goes to a lot of trouble to prepare, place, register, and maintain his or her cache. The only "reward" the owner gets is the logs that are submitted online. Seems like a small price to pay for finding the cache. -- ORR

[paris1time]

I have met a family that geocaches and they only show to have 1 find logged. They just don't log online for some reason.

In this case I feel something else is up (not necessarily bad). They are using a screen name that is already taken on GC.com and with a nickname like "The Cache Bandit" it seems to suggest some type “secrecy”.


paris1time

[flannelman]

I have had several of my caches found by Cisco. They never log online but they do leave good logs in the cache. Just another way of playing the game I guess. I don't award FTF honors to those who choose not to log online however. I had one cache that was found and not logged and then found about a month later by another cacher who logged it online. The second finder got the FTF honor on the cache page.

[TheAlabamaRambler]

As noted above, a name like TheCacheBandits could cause concern, but since they signed the log and left the cache intact it looks like thay are among the good guys!

As to logging caches, I rarely do!

It has nothing to do with my appreciation of the hider or my enjoyment of the cache; I have never hunted a cache I didn't enjoy in some way, but more to do with such esoteric considerations as:

Not caring one whit about my numbers, yet realizing that my experience and therefore the validity of my opinion and online posts is often judged by them by strangers who have no other way to evaluate me. I often present seminars and talk with landowners, and they seem to think someone with a find count to be more authoritative, so I do log some, and I do have those I have logged show up in my signature stats bar.

The time it takes to log them, and the effort required to even record them, just isn't a fun part of caching for me - most of the time at the end of a caching day I couldn't tell you which and how many we found, because I don't write them down. I have started carrying a digital recorder lately, and on a few trips recorded the cache ID and any comments I have, but then when I get home I get busy and never listen to it!

I mostly cache with others, who will log it, and I don't have anything that needs to be said that they don't say.

Online logging fuels the numbers controversy, and I am sick of the numbers validity discussion! Numbers are meaningless except to the person who logged them. According to CacheStats (a cool tool if you haven't seen it that analyzes your logged finds, http://www.logicweave.com/cachestats.html) my logged 1900 or so include about 200 pocket caches (multiple event logs), and I could care less about those who claim these aren't caches and call me a stats-whore or liar for logging them! Just don't want to listen to them gripe about it!

Controversy doesn't interest me. I did a few cache runs with friends the week of GW4 and the week after, for example. We found over a thousand caches in those two weeks (312 in just 24 hours!) but because of a lot of controversy I didn't log a single one of them.

Sometimes I go on cache runs out of state, I have been on several caching weekends from Arkansas to Florida to Georgia to Michigan where we found a lot of caches, but the trip and the friends and the finds were the fun part, not the day after spent logging them.

I suspect that I have found around 22-2300 caches that I haven't logged. Some of those are caches where I never got out of the car, just watched the people with me jump out and get them. Mostly they sign my name to the log, or a team name. I was there, watched the hunt, saw the cache... sometimes the finder will bring the log over to the car for everyone to sign... but I usually don't count it as a find. That means that my name is in a whole lot of caches I haven't logged.

I have hides, and do like to see the logs online, but have never once compared the paper log to the online one to see who is doing what. When I pull maintenance on a cache I usually replace the logsheet and stick the old one in my pocket, and it ends up at home in a geo-junk box of stuff I keep but will likely never use. My goal is for cachers to have fun finding what I hid, I don't place any logging burden or expectation on them. If they want to log it, cool. If they want to cheat and log something they never found, that's their problem.

Anyhoo, I hope that helps you see that it isn't personal when someone doesn't log your cache, many of us have reasons that we don't, even if some of those reasons make sense only to us!

Ed