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Step goal cheater

Former Member over 8 years ago

It is possible to set a daily goal of 1 or 2 steps to earn a challenge flag of 800,000%. The same guy ( not going to name him) has done this twice. There should be a lower cap on manual daily goal entry, maybe 2500 steps?

0 eiwill over 8 years ago

Just out of curiosity and not trying to be rude but why do you bother? Are you in some sort of competition with the guy?
And technically it is not cheating, I guess.

But the fact that Garmin allow setting 1 step as a daily goal is rather stupid, I agree.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Just out of curiosity and not trying to be rude but why do you bother? Are you in some sort of competition with the guy?
And technically it is not cheating, I guess.

But the fact that Garmin allow setting 1 step as a daily goal is rather stupid, I agree.

Because I'm a stickler for fairness. If someone scores a 5x goal day, and this cheater steals the "GOAL CRUSHER" (whatever it's called) tag, is that fair to the 5x'er?

If his goal was 5k, 800,000% is 40 million steps IN ONE DAY, but his whole month challenge is 250,000? The numbers don't add up, unless his goal is set ludicrously low. Clearly a cheater. Hopefully, people will stop inviting him to challenges and remove him from contact lists.

0 ASmugDill over 7 years ago

There should be a lower cap on manual daily goal entry, maybe 2500 steps?

Because I'm a stickler for fairness.

Yet you seem to want to unfairly impose an arbitrary restriction on all other paying customers, who have purchased Garmin fitness wearable devices and ought to be able to use them as they see fit.

If someone scores a 5x goal day, and this cheater steals the "GOAL CRUSHER" (whatever it's called) tag, is that fair to the 5x'er?

If you don't like the rules of a game in which participation is entirely voluntary, then it's up to you to withdraw from and/or boycott it.

Hopefully, people will stop inviting him to challenges and remove him from contact lists.

That's fair enough. Keep hoping, with or without keeping your eyes open (just in case you may be disappointed when others don't heed your call).

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Garmin limits weekly intensity minutes to no less than 150. That is a CDC recommendation. The Mayo Clinic reports that the average US adult takes about 5900 daily, so 2500 is generously low. It could even be as low as 1000 for those rather sedentary or obese. The lower number itself is not important as long as it is reasonable, given the intended goal of the equipment. Garmin could (and I hope will) put this in. They have, in the past, added improvements to deter cheaters who were using multiple trackers to multiply their step counts (TrueUp). Cheaters only cheat themselves and cheapen the game for the rest of us. As for me, I used to NEVER refuse a step challenge. Now, thanks to this one person, I will refuse those he chooses to participate in in the future. If you're going to cheat, don't make it so blatantly obvious.

Certainly 1 or 2 steps a day for someone bedbound or wheelchair bound is a good thing, and a tracker would record that. But the numbers I posted for this person show that this is clearly not the case.

0 Carmen_F over 7 years ago

That is the reason why I don't take part in challenges anymore. During my Fitbit time I could see people with a number of steps and active minutes that couldn't be real. More than 80.000 steps every day, how is that possible? Tracker on the wheel of their bike? Anywhere on their car? Or are they running around while having a shower, preparing meals etc.? These cheaters even took part in challenges where you could win things. So no one had a chance for the first places.

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Carmen_F

Well I did +75000 steps last Thursday during a group challenge which I eventually won but to do this day in and day out is indeed impossible.It was my first group challenge with about 40 to 50 challengers and I fought far and square to win it, this motivated me to keep moving and I stepped like crazy. Then at the result of the challenge I saw a guy who won something called GOAL CRUSHER and I saw 2010%, didn't understand this therefore googled and came up here to get some explanation. So what does this guy earn ? Points ? How many and is it a one time or repeatable ? So basically I run and fight like hell for motivation and accomplishment and some guy just sits in he's chair during a whole week and gets this award.? I don't understand cheats... They are cheating themselves and ruining the whole badge reward system which I find highly motivating.Its a good thing that Garmin have implemented a limitation of 100 challenges because here again so so many cheats..

Philippe

0 trux over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

So what does this guy earn ? Points ?

There are no points for winning the Weekly Step Challenge. You only get promoted to a higher level challenge with people who do even more steps in average than in the one you won.

some guy just sits in he's chair during a whole week and gets this award.?

How many steps did he do in the week? Do you have any evidence of the cheating? If so, then report it to Garmin Support. Seeing someone having 2000% or more goal crushing is no evidence. You can set your goal to whatever you want - for example one step.

0 spyder49 over 4 years ago in reply to trux

Although it is only points it is a litle disappointig whe people choose to not abide by what most folks would consider fair play. Can a person truely average 59000 steps in a day? If the person is a runner and can maintain a pace of 180 steps a minute, it would take 5 hours and 45 minutes. A military march is about 120 steps per minute which would take about 8 hours and 20 minutes to complete. I am not saying either can't be done, but find it hard to believe it is done daily 7 days a week for over a year.

0 trux over 4 years ago in reply to spyder49

spyder49 said:
Although it is only points

As I wrote, you do not get any points for winning the weekly step challenge.

spyder49 said:
Can a person truely average 59000 steps in a day?

You can try to ask him/her. Maybe is cheating, maybe not. There are also exceptional people, extreme sportsmen, and long distance feet traveller, using Garmin devices, so there are certainly also people able to achieve that high numbers too. Or it can be a person working on some vibrating machine. Who knows, and who really cares. If the person is cheating, its her/his problem. It won't make you losing any of your results or points anyway.