AT executive group manager of network planning and performance Richard Harrison apologised to affected passengers for the overcharging issues.<\/p>\n
![\"Auckland](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/auckland-transport-richard-harrison-I4XCW3VBGVCL5K6QF42ONPBEAA.png\")
<\/p>\n
Auckland Transport’s Richard Harrison (file image). (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognise that each affected customer was charged more than they should have been, we are sorry for that and have refunded 90% of affected customers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis technology issue occurred within the ticketing system. While problems can sometimes happen in systems of this scale, that does not change our responsibility to put things right.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 14,400 passengers affected by the glitch made up about 1.2% of the 1.24 million who paid by contactless card or device over the period where it was a problem.<\/p>\n
The fault caused some card readers to record tag-on and tag-off times out of sync, according to AT. As a result, the system pieced some journeys together wrongly and charged default fares as if a user hadn’t tagged on or off properly at all. <\/p>\n
Contactless payments on AT services launched in November 2024. <\/p>\n
AT said the fault may also have affected a small number of SuperGold cardholders who tagged on using HOP cards around 9am.<\/p>\n
Ferry and bus commuter charged $433 too much<\/p>\n
The worst-affected customer, a regular ferry and bus user, was overcharged about $433 across 17 journeys. AT refunded that passenger the full $562.60 charged for those trips.<\/p>\n
From today, bus, train, and ferry users in Auckland are able to use contactless debit and credit cards to get onboard. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
The highest charge on a single journey was about $72, for a ferry and bus trip that should have cost about $29.50.<\/p>\n
AT are refunding every affected trip in full, including the correct fare, which means its $450,000 repayment bill was larger than the amount actually overcharged.<\/p>\n
The bill comes to nearly a single day\u2019s fare takings, with AT collecting $204.5m in fare revenue in the last financial year, an average of about $558,000 a day, the agency said.<\/p>\n
So far, AT has refunded more than $404,000, as the remaining $47,800 is owed to customers whose automatic refunds failed, typically because their card had expired.<\/p>\n
“Because contactless payment customers travel anonymously, AT does not hold the personal information to contact these customers directly,” Harrison said.<\/p>\n
“Customers have up to six years to make a claim by contacting AT to have their refund assessed and processed. <\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/at-hop-card-reader-NWYZBBHUYRDTPHQZYENFKTUL54.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
A fare card reader at an Auckland train station. The AT Hop card works on all buses, trains and ferries in the city. (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n
“We encourage people who may have been affected to get in touch.”<\/p>\n
AT formally notified the Commerce Commission in July and sent a further update on September 30 about the problems. It said it had not been advised of any investigation.<\/p>\n
Fair trading and competition general manager Rebecca McAtamney said “the commission is currently assessing whether an investigation is warranted in this matter.”<\/p>\n
“When deciding whether to investigate, we assess a range of factors, including the extent of consumer harm, the seriousness of the conduct, and broader public interest. <\/p>\n
McAtamney said the commission would also consider whether a business had identified a problem early and taken steps to refund affected consumers.<\/p>\n
“Providing refunds does not necessarily prevent further action from being taken.”<\/p>\n
Ageing systems stay in place until 2027<\/p>\n
The Motu Move card will be rolled out across the rest of the country in due course. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
The problematic readers are part of Auckland’s 14-year-old HOP ticketing system, which the region’s public transport will rely on until the delayed $1.4 billion national Motu Move system arrives at the end of 2027 – about a year later than first planned.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, AT is still spending to keep HOP up and running, including millions on bus driver consoles to replace ageing units dating back to the system\u2019s launch in 2012.<\/p>\n
Wellington, which was meant to move to Motu Move in late 2025 but won\u2019t do so until mid-2027, has also faced problems with its ageing system.<\/p>\n
In June, Transport Minister Chris Bishop singled out the Snapper system as faltering. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are regular reports of Wellingtonians getting on buses, and the system\u2019s just not working, because it is end-of-life, which is why we are replacing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It’s the first stage of a national billion dollar plan. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Greater Wellington pushed ahead with its own $5.5 million upgrade to accept contactless payments in April, but that upgrade has been hit by a software fault since May that stops some buses from accepting contactless payments, Local Democracy Reporting reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Auckland Transport has repaid more than $400,000 to passengers overcharged by faulty bus card readers, including one commuter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[51,138,111,139,69,244,145,112],"class_list":["post-628527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-auckland","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-personal-finance","tag-technology","tag-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}