Invalid Portal: groene lus MTB-route Lede
Title of the Wayspot: Trailmarker groene lus MTB-route Lede
Location: 50°58'08.8"N 3°59'27.4"E (https://www.google.com/maps/dir//50.969101,3.990936/@50.9690639,3.9867578,16z or https://intel.ingress.com/intel?ll=50.969289,3.99088&z=18&pll=50.969101,3.990936)
City: Lede
Country: Belgium
Screenshot of the rejection mail:
Why this should NOT be a Wayspot:
The Wayspot claims to be a trailmarker for a Mountainbike track called "groene lus", which could be translated as "green loop". This immediately raised suspicions: there is no such loop in Lede, Belgium of that color (more on this later). Firstly, the wayspot is located in a newly built neighbourhood. It would be rather strange to have a MTB route in such an urban setting.
Intelmap and google streetview:
Now let's take a look at the wayspot picture.
The wayspot is in fact nothing more than a sticker with the logo of a known MTB-route in Flanders (which is the Dutch speaking part of Belgium). The red circle indicates that this route is supported by the province of Vlaams-Brabant. Lede, however, is nowhere near this province. It's a part of the province East-Flanders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lede,_Belgium).
When you go to the webite https://www.sport.vlaanderen/waar-sporten/sporten-in-de-natuur/mountainbikeroutes/mountainbikeroutes/ you can search for all the MTB tracks in Lede. Not surprisingly, you'll see that there is NO green loop in Lede. Only red and blue. I added a black X to show the location of the wayspot.
If you look at the quality of the sticker, it seems that the person who nominated this wayspot , just tore the sticker from an existing trailmarker on a green loop (the province of Vlaams-Brabant does have a green loop) and smacked it on a lamp post in this street, most likely to create a "home" stop/gym/portal. I can imagine the people behind this MTB track would not be happy to know people are vandalising their work in such a way.
Please remove this POI. Thank you.
Comments
Nice detective work Sherlock.
This is indeed a fake poi and should be removed. But it's clearly also abuse and destruction of property
Thanks for the appeal, @Mald3r-ING! After reviewing the additional evidence provided, we’ve decided to retire the Portal in question.
@NianticVK this fake POI has returned, in exactly the same place.
Bumping this to other mods @NianticCasey-ING @NianticAtlas @NianticGiffard
My new appeal foto rejected
Thanks for the follow-up! We've retired the Portal again.