Invisible Players? -_-

A LOT of people actually do this...It happens every night in my area as well...and I'd guess, every area out there...

Think about it this way, if you are a 20-60 year old guy with no kids/family, this would probably be my preferred way to take gyms/get coins too since there is less chance for turnover (note it's LESS, not impossible).

One would have to think the cost of gas is more than the 10 coins, BUT...there's that stardust as well so financially, you're probably better off just spending money. Of course, if you have a cluster of 5 gyms real close by, maybe it's worth it, but prob not.

I'd guess they are either in a car that you can't see or possibly behind a building, in a building, etc...

Also, is this happening on just 1 gym or all 5?

That's more likely than a spoofer IMO.

In my neighborhood, there are several gyms that aren't in the vicinity of a car or building. And yet they get "played" all the time. I've stood there before looking around like WTF???? It sucks and they need to fix it.

Yes, this is the case and niantic doesnt care. its sad.

Still plenty of GPS spoofers about. In my town two or three of one team are blatant spoofers.

You can report them to Niantic, but I've done this and some of them are still playing.

I've no idea how easy it is for Niantic to check whether they are spoofing, whether they've got the resources or whether they really care.

I usually make my rounds at night, as well.

The GPS spoofers are a royal pain, but perhaps it's possible to use their spoofing against them. The advantage they have is mobility, but it can also be our advantage. They're the type to make an easy coin and they don't want to have to fight for it every night. If every night you make them fight for their gyms, they're likely to use their mobility and seek out easier pickings elsewhere.

Still a lot of hackers around yes, in my town at least there are lots. At any time of the day, but after trying different hours I have seen that for me the best time to make my gym runs is early in the morning, I think that probably a lot of this hackers does not has a job, they are young guys who plays from their sofa and stay up until late, so give a try early in the morning is my best advice, and don't give up, make them now that everyday you will be taking down those gyms, probably at the end you can make them find another ones.

Niantic does not even care, have reported hackers multiple times, the haven't answered my emails and each month I can see 2-3 new hackers around my town taking the gyms without being there.

Just echoing what others have said - spoofers/botters are still active, and extremely frustrating.

I kept reporting them and nothing happened. Then one day, after probably a month of working my arse off for an hour a night to collect 10-20 coins they were all pretty much gone at once.

It did coincide with the changes to the points - so I'm not sure whether they were all banned, or if they just gave up b/c my area tends to have pretty massive turnover (esp now that it's easier to take down gyms)

I'm afraid that (at least in my area) at this point of time the amount of spoofers is larger than the actual people playing the game.

I haven't seen anyone out for weeks now and yet the gyms in my suburb area have the most crazy turnover there is. They still (!) change from team every 15 to 30 minutes, which is really crazy if you ask me. I wish Niantic actually did something about it.

They will never be able to address individual complaints, there are probably millions of them. I wonder if they could somehow cross reference some of the 3 different sources of location data - gps, cell signal, and wifi signal - to identify and ban spoofers en masse.

They are there you just cannot see them.
I play late at night just so I don't have to constantly run into other trainers trying to get their 10 gym defender bonus.