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Muggled before FTF?


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Hello all,

 

I'm preparing to place my first 4 caches and it got me wondering; has anyone ever had a cache muggled (stolen) before it was actually found?

 

Just curious.

Not us, but we know of an entire road-side series of caches (over a dozen) swiped by litter crews before they were even published. :D

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Hello all,

 

I'm preparing to place my first 4 caches and it got me wondering; has anyone ever had a cache muggled (stolen) before it was actually found?

 

Just curious.

Yes, found before activation by a non-Geocacher or a Geocacher. Sometimes it's a spot that looks like the perfect hiding place, but previous caches have been there and were trashed or stolen. Some seemingly vacant places can have a bunch of non-cachers at times. One of mine was near a youth soccer field. Kids get extremely bored at soccer games :ph34r:, and tend to venture into the nearby wooded areas, and that's how one of my caches got repeatedly muggled til I archived it. Now that spot has only a super well hidden Chirp transmitter.

 

For some of mine, I've had them in place unactivated for months, just to get an idea of whether or not they will tend to be messed with, or stolen immediately. There are so many factors, sometimes you just gotta try it, even as a test cache.

 

But if someone found it first, that person found it... um... first. Look at these kinds of threads, and they are very long with strange posts about which FTF is correctly called "found first". :anicute:

Edited by kunarion
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A few times each year, a Community Volunteer Reviewer will receive an email from an angry cache owner, alleging that the reviewer stole their cache during the review process because it disappeared before the FTF. They don't understand that we do not actually visit the cache locations, and that many review territories span hundreds of miles.

 

An immediate muggling is a good indication that the cache owner should find a better hiding spot.

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Interesting anecdotes. Now let's add another variable. Does anyone know of a muggle who happened to find an unfound cache and then quickly read about caching, immediately joined and claimed the FTF?!

Yes, except the claiming FTF part. But that could happen on my caches. I sometimes include a "Certificate Of FTF". :anicute:

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