Cache Trasher…
Friday, February 29th, 2008Part One:
We were first alerted to a problem with our caches when Tramper Ted logged that they were unable to find “GC19B8G: 143 (Auckland)“… this was somewhat odd as we knew the location quite well and were aware it was a low density muggle area with very little foot traffic… hmm… something odd was afoot…It took a few days before an opportunity presented itself which freed up enough time for us to go and check it out but we got there in the end… and sure enough it was gone. No cache container, no contents, no log book… just a few little hearts scattered at the base of the tree…
it’s nice to know that a little still love lingered 
Original Cache when placed GC19B8G: 143 (Auckland)
On our way home we decided to check on another of our caches “GC18ADH: Whit-Woods (Auckland) ” which had, what we considered to be a great camo. To us, and most who had given us feedback after finding it, our cache would be practically invisible to any muggle, more so as the cache container was constructed to fit the stump and the camo blend in with its surroundings… one would have to know our cache existed there to even begin to look for it… so to trash it one would have to know.. and trashed it was…. all that remained was a small blue handmade dog and one of the original stickers….
All the other contents missing including the “Kazo, Japan” Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug…
Original Cache when placed GC18ADH: Whit-Woods (Auckland)
Later that night we went to check on another of our caches “GC189GX Pohutukawa Harbour (Auckland)” and it too was missing including the cache container, all contents and log book…
Original Cache when placed GC189GX Pohutukawa Harbour (Auckland)
Maintanence was peformed on GC18Z56: CAM (Auckland) and GC18ADN: Hit The Deck (Auckland). GC18B74: Stones throw (Auckland) was still in good order as were GC189GC: The Grass Is Greener (Auckland) and GC18Y35: Log-it (Auckland) but we decided to monitor them over the upcoming days checking on them often…
As part of what was now our “routine” we checked on GC18B74: Stones throw (Auckland) this morning… and all that remained was…
Original Cache location when placed GC18B74: Stones throw (Auckland)
grrr! Time to rally around the troops… it didn’t take long to track down the video footage of our Cache Trasher in action.. and sure enough, to our horror and disgust it was in fact another geocacher :\
The timing is as as follows, and as posted when we disabled our Cache listing this morning on the night of the 28th February 2008:
Dear Geocacher concerned, at:
7:16pm You drove past the cache site in your 4WD
7:17pm You parked your 4WD to the right of the cache location
7:17pm (&30seconds) You walked past cache site to the left
7:18pm You then walked back in direction of your 4WD
7:20pm You were at the Ground Zero of the cache
7:22pm You found our cache and tore up contents destroying not only the container but the communal property of all the geocachers who had previously logged their visits (shame on you!)
7:24pm You drove off in your 4WD
Images cropped and Photo quality reduced
Later that morning we headed off to GC18ADN: Hit The Deck (Auckland) and while it had been there the previous morning (27th) it too was now gone with the remaining contents scattered over the deck railings on the cliff side with very little that we could safely salvage….
Once again the cache container itself, log book and the majority of the contents were gone…
Original Cache when placed GC18ADN: Hit The Deck (Auckland)
We started asking around, full image quality photos (complete with time stamps) in hand… and sure enough our Cache Trasher had once again had a busy night…
Two of our caches still remain in tact, as of this afternoon at least:
GC189GC: The Grass Is Greener (Auckland) and GC18Y35: Log-it (Auckland)
Part Two:
Personally I have such a lot more to say on this topic… the joys of having ones own blog means one can rant, rave and be deeply vexed if only to oneself… and rant I will…
our cache listings….
Part Three the reason for it all:
My Ma has always said, and to this day still says, “Sorry doesn’t cut the mustard” which in our family means “don’t do it because sorry just doesn’t make up for it”. She also raised us on the “bad fairies” principle, that being, if you ever did anything wrong or treated someone unfairly, the “bad fairies” would get you by doing the same, if not worse, back to you… I guess it’s our families take on Karma. My parents also raised us with a strong foundation of no lying… my Ma always said “never lie to me, always tell me the truth, I maybe angry when you tell me but I will be more so if I find out you have lied”…
I have in turn, raised my now teenage daughters under those same principles and values… for them, “sorry doesn’t cut the mustard”, “the bad fairies will get you if you wrong someone” and “don’t ever lie to me, initially I maybe angry with the truth, but I will be deeply vexed by a lie”… in fact being lied to is my pet hate, I detest it and I fail to see why anyone would not take responsibility for their own actions.
While the above doesn’t seem related to our caches being destroyed, for me, it’s very much so. I believe that when in doubt one should fall back on the principles, morals and values that one has been raised as this will give clarity, direction and understanding when you are standing too close to a situation that is perplexing or causing distress.
For me personally to begin to make sense of why our caches, and property of others contained inside, were destroyed, I guess the starting point is quoted words from the cache trasher, funkymunkyzone, as contained in the email he sent us:
- It’s no excuse but I got really wound up by what I considered to be predatory practices on the TradeMe auctions, but really I have no excuse – your business is your business.
So the reason behind the cache vandalism appears to be the recent opening of our geocaching supplies store and because we started selling some of our products on Trade Me, under our trader name Geocaching, thus we entered the same market that he trades in under his trader name funkymunky.
Some Facts:
1. Yes, we started an online geocaching supplies store
2. funkymunkyzone himself took our original test pricing ($8.50-$8.95) off our online store, and as a result lowered his Trade Me price and profile.
3. Our Travel Bugs did not go on Trade Me until AFTER our caches were trashed and when they did go on Trade Me they were MORE expensive than his.. reason for that being we incorporated the geocaching sales into our already GST registered business, so our pricing (for all our products) includes 12.5% which is not profit.
All this trashing started over his original price being $9.95 on Trade Me and ours being $8.95 on our online store (not Trade Me) + $3.50 postage = $12.45
So our “predatory practices” appears to be
1. we listed Geocaching products on Trade Me and
2. He lowered from $9.95
During this time his Geocaching.com profile funkymunkyzone changed to read:
I’m still unsure as to who was meant to be ripping off whom :\
Our Store:
I’m irked (with myself) that I feel the need to justify our switch from “finds” to “hides” and why we started our store
Our switch:
because of my own personal circumstances at the moment, I am unable to get out geocaching as much as I would like to, and as we cache as a team this means Andy doesn’t cache without me… the sweetie 
He in turn started, and loves, crafting cache containers… GC18Y35: Log-it is perhaps the best example of this:
and I in turn like to have some input if only viewing from the sidelines… some might call it nagging
Our Store:
We, or rather I, decided I would like to do an online Geocaching supplies store in NZ because:
1. Geocoins are hard to track down and I fell in love with them after we came across Blue Magic
2. The time delay in getting items delivered from overseas can be quite off putting
3. I’m back in hospital mid March with an expected 3-6mth down time so the store would be a good way for me to still be involved in geocaching and contribute to our family
it went like this:
First Email from Chris aka FunkyMunkyZone that we received the morning we posted the video:
- Envelope-to: bee@geocache.geek.nz
- X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/818.31 YahooMailWebService/0.7.162
- Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:45:29 +1100 (EST)
- From: Chris Hooker <funkymunky@XXXXX.co.nz>
- Subject: You cache
- To: bee@geocache.geek.nz
- You know what, you’re right. I feel very very bad for what I did and I’m so sorry.
- It’s no excuse but I got really wound up by what I considered to be predatory practices on the TradeMe auctions, but really I have no excuse – your business is your business. I showed extremely poor judgement, and I really am so sorry for that.
- I notice you have some of your other caches disabled, but I can assure you I have nothing to do with them.
- Once again, I’m incredibly sorry. I enjoyed the caches of yours I found so far and I’m totally ashamed of myself for stooping to such a low level to do something like this. I am utterly remorseful for doing it. I’m sorry and I hope that my stupid and resentful actions don’t tarnish your future enjoyment for the sport.
- With regards TradeMe, I won’t be ordering any more TB dog tags after these ones I have are sold.
- If you see fit to out me publicly, you may obviously do so. I’ll leave that to you.
- Chris.
and second:
- Envelope-to: bee@geocache.geek.nz
- X-Mailer: YahooMailRC/818.31 YahooMailWebService/0.7.162
- Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:03:40 +1100 (EST)
- From: Chris Hooker <funkymunky@XXXXX.co.nz>
- Subject: Once again…
- To: bee@geocache.geek.nz
- I just want you to know that I feel absolutely sick that I did that to your cache.
- I’m not normally a bad person. I have been under a lot of stress recently in all aspects of my life, and once again, I know there’s no reason for me to take that out on your cache, but I flipped out and did something totally out of character.
- I honestly wish I could put it back, and undo the mean thing I did.
- If you could see yourself to not make this public I would be very grateful, but I’ll understand if you don’t want to. I believe having read your blog before, that you’re good people – you totally didn’t deserve me doing this, no one would, and again I’m really really sorry.
- Chris.
we replied as follows:
- Hi Chris,
- Firstly I will just say that this is intentionally going to be brief and to the point, I think that a day or so for us all to think this over and gather thoughts would prevent any other regrettable actions being taken.
- I would like to be able to arrange a time to discuss this and the events leading up to this, be it over E-mail, phone or in person.
- I belive that the best course of action would be to publicly take responsibility for the destructions that you have caused to the Geocaching community. We have not named you but as you are probably aware many others shared our previous suspicions and we were in discussion with them before the posting on Stones Throw.
- The last thing I want is what others are suggesting, in that you be removed from the Geocaching site. In spite of everything I think there is a way to move forward.
- Andy
his reply in turn:
- Envelope-to: bee@geocache.geek.nz
- X-YMail-OSG:
- X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3
- From: “Chris Hooker” <funkymunky@XXXXX.co.nz>
- To: “Kathy & Andy \(GeoCache.geek.nz\)” <bee@geocache.geek.nz>
- Subject: RE: You cache
- Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:22:00 +1300
- X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0)
- Hi Andy,
- I appreciate your response and once again I would like to offer my sincerest apology for this action.
- Please know, Andy, that like I said in the first email i sent to you, I did not have anything to do with any of the other of your caches that have been disabled. It is regreattable enough that those caches went missing, due to whatever circumstances. In a moment of spite and weakness, I took advantage to make the situation worse. I can assure you that I am no serial killer of caches.
- I understand you would like me to publicly apologise for this. The problem I have is that I know that would mean the end of me ever geocaching here, or maintaining any caches. Maybe that in itself is just, I don’t know. I know that if you were to accept my apology, and my assurances that nothing of this nature will ever happen again, then you will certainly come out clearly the better people. I stooped to doing something stupid and mean – one really stupid act after 470 cache finds and 30-something hides. You would
- walk away from the situation with respect and dignity.
- I hope you can tell that I am utterly ashamed of what I did, but the other reason I would beg for your forgiveness, without the need to go public is that this was the action of only half of this team. I have let down the other half (Vera, the love of my life) with this stupid act. I really do understand that you are angry with me, and rightly so. But please don’t
- punish Vera too.
- Once again, I’m really sorry.
- Chris.
and again:
- Envelope-to: bee@geocache.geek.nz
- X-YMail-OSG:
- X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3
- From: “Chris Hooker” <funkymunky@XXXXX.co.nz>
- To: “Kathy & Andy \(GeoCache.geek.nz\)” <bee@geocache.geek.nz>
- Subject: RE: You cache
- Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 20:52:30 +1300
- X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0)
- Hi Kathy and Andy,
- I just read you blog entry and once again, I’m really sorry for what I did, but I really honestly didn’t have anything to do with any of those previous caches going missing. I can understand you linking me with the cache I did destory – Stones Throw – but I really did not do anything to those other ones.
- I guess I can understand that you don’t believe me, given the circumstances, but I really seriously didn’t have anything to do with them. I’m ashamed of what I did do, but whether there is someone else who did the same thing, or whether they really were just muggled, I don’t know.
- Once again, I’m really sorry for what I did, but please, I didn’t destroy any others.
- Chris.
then his partner:
- Envelope-to: bee@geocache.geek.nz
- Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:06:10 +0000
- From: “Vera” <XXXX@XXXX.com>
- To: bee@geocache.geek.nz
- Subject: your cache
- Dear Kathy and Andy,
- I’m Vera, the other member of the Funkymunkyzone team. I only just heard about what Chris did now and I wanted to tell you I’m really sorry for his behaviour. I’ve talked to him about it and he’s extremely sorry for what he did. There is absolutely no excuse for it.
- I also heard about other caches of yours being muggled. I wanted to tell you that I know Chris very well and even though I’m not his biggest fan right now after hearing about what he did, I’m sure he did not do anything to any other caches.
- Chris has been under a lot of stress lately, for many reasons. He has lots of problems and sometimes I thought Geocaching was what was keeping him sane. I told him many times that I thought he was giving the sport too much importance but the truth is that he really enjoyed it and, for a while, the only way for him to feel happy about his life was by practising geocaching. It’s like geocaching made him forget about all his other problems and all the stress he’s being put through at this stage of his life.
- I enjoy it quite a lot too and as a team we’ve had an incredible time exploring both of our countries looking for caches.
- He tells me he doesn’t know what happened in his head. I guess he just snapped and I’m sorry you were his target this time (that’s my job, most of the time…). Despite all his problems, he is not a bad person.
- As a member of the team, I’m shocked, embarrassed and ashamed of what he did. I’m in Portugal at the moment but if you want him to go and put your cache back I’ll tell him to do so.
- I hope this terrible event doesn’t have serious consequences. The last thing Chris needs in his life is another problem (even if he was the one creating it).
- I don’t really know what else to say except I’m really sorry. I had no idea he was going to do something like that.
- I know there’s no excuse but I ask you to please try to understand. I wish I could have done something to avoid it. Once again, as a part of that team, I’m really sorry.
- - Vera.
our reply to Vera:
- Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:54:13 +1300
- To: “Vera <XXXX@XXXX.com>
- From: “Kathy & Andy (GeoCache.geek.nz)” <bee@geocache.geek.nz>
- Subject: Re: your cache
- Evening Vera
- We appreciate the time you put in to contacting us.
- We are fully aware that you played no part in Chris’s actions with destroying our caches, the photographs and video footage show he accomplished this on his own. Neither Andy or myself harbour any ill feelings towards you.
- With regard to our other caches being “muggled” we find this extremely disturbing as it implies that others are responsible for Chris’s spite and willful vandalism. From our perspective this alone seems to indicate that no progress is, nor will be made, to resolve this issue, not now nor in the future. There are overwhelming facts and the evidence, as stated above, that place Chris’s vehicle at more than one of our cache locations. It would have been nice to have been able to resolve this issue promptly but as honesty is lacking we shall move on regardless.
- It is a shame that Chris has chosen to take this path and despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he remains comfortable with denial and blaming others. Ultimately it is he who has to live with himself, his conscience and the future that is in front of him.
- We both wish you all the best in your endeavours.
- Regards
- Kathy & Andy
I personally find it all rather odd that he still lists some of our caches on his profile page, funkymunkyzone under his FTF milestones, in particular:
58 – Pohutukawa Harbour [Auckland, New Zealand], 02 Jan 08
59 – Whit-Woods [Auckland, New Zealand], 03 Jan 08
60 – Hit The Deck [Auckland, New Zealand], 03 Jan 08
70 – Jurassic Park [Auckland, New Zealand], 12 Jan 08
82 – 143 [Auckland, New Zealand], 14 Feb 08
wonder if he will start a First To Trash milestone listing.
Ultimately Groundspeak “banned” Chris Hookers Geocaching.com account funkymunkyzone but 6 months later this ban was lifted… hense why I am revisiting our then, and now, experience….
For part two of the saga see Cache trasher, Groundspeak, funkymunkyzone.
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