TB taken, now I'm being ignored, help!

[+Squirrelly0723]

I released a great TB back in May that I have been waiting a long time to release and was super excited to see it get going. With a mission to get to Antarctica, I couldn't wait to see its travel logs. Unfortunately in June, the second person to grab it held onto it for over a month. I kindly wrote to them and asked them if they had plans to get it moving along and if they could do so soon. They replied and said that they were planning on dropping it in a cache the next week. So I waited, and a week went by, and another, and some more. So after another 2 months I wrote to them again kindly asking that they move it along as I'm excited for it to travel. This time no response. So I waited a couple more months and wrote to them again recently, and once again I was ignored. I'm so bummed that I put time, effort, not to mention money into my little TB and now it's disappeared off the face of the earth, and it's captors are unresponsive. Is there anything that can be done about this? Any advice? Help!!

[+cerberus1]

You mailed with your expectations a few times. Not much more to do.

Mark it missing (which you just did), or hope that they find it under the car seat, bottom of the pack,etc and finally move it on later.

They're still caching.

[+fbingha]

I would not mark my hostage trackables as missing. It takes it out of their inventory and gives them even less to feel guilty about.

[+Squirrelly0723]

That's a good point, thanks

[+Gill & Tony]

I've had exactly the same situation. A member with one find took my trackable, logged it and have done nothing with it. I e-mailed them after 6 weeks or so and they said they had been busy and would drop it the following weekend. a couple of months later I e-mailed them again and asked if they could mail it back to me if it wasn't going to be dropped. No response.

 

Frustrating but nowt you can do.

[+kunarion]

I would not mark my hostage trackables as missing. It takes it out of their inventory and gives them even less to feel guilty about.

Long before I mark my TB officially Missing, I rename it "MISSING":

"My Travel Bug" becomes renamed "My Travel Bug [MISSING]". This way, it shows up in any inventory list, notifying people there's an issue.

 

I returned a TB Code to myself last week, so that I could revive it, to have a TB code people could log at an Event. It had been held for 2 years. So I sometimes take these back from the takers. Most of my other taken TBs have already been revived by me ("Discover Only", I ain't placing those again), but may be repurposed if I need an available Tracking Number.

Edited October 23, 2014 by kunarion

[+fbingha]

I would not mark my hostage trackables as missing. It takes it out of their inventory and gives them even less to feel guilty about.

Long before I mark my TB officially Missing, I rename it "MISSING":

"My Travel Bug" becomes renamed "My Travel Bug [MISSING]". This way, it shows up in any inventory list, notifying people there's an issue.

 

I returned a TB Code to myself last week, so that I could revive it, to have a TB code people could log at an Event. It had been held for 2 years. So I sometimes take these back from the takers. Most of my other taken TBs have already been revived by me ("Discover Only", I ain't placing those again), but may be repurposed if I need an available Tracking Number.

 

Yes, I did that, too except I used [Missing] <bug name> so that it would float to the top of the cacher's inventory. I only ever hoped that high find hostage takers would bother to let it go someday. The fly by night app users don't put them back in the game. It seemed to work a couple of times but I no longer want to be bothered with it so I sold all my hostage & lost numbers and no longer buy travel bugs.

 

Of course, after two years, one should give up and reuse the code.