Fix a transport-card overcharge or get a refund in Lower Hutt

Metlink (Greater Wellington Regional Council).

Your region's public-transport operator and smartcard team (AT HOP in Auckland, Snapper in Wellington, Bee Card in most regions, Metrocard in Christchurch).

Raise it as soon as you spot the charge, within about 60 days while trip records are easy to retrieve.

The smartcard's terms of use (your contract with the operator)

The card's terms set out fares, tag-on/tag-off, default fares and refunds, and provide for genuine errors to be corrected. This is the primary basis: a system or reader error that overcharged you should be put right under the terms.

Fair Trading Act 1986, s 9 (no misleading conduct in trade)

Section 9 prohibits conduct in trade that is misleading or deceptive — relevant if you were misled about fares or refunds. The Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 (ss 28–29) may also reach the card service, but public-transport services can fall outside it, so don't assert a CGA breach as a certainty — frame an error correction as the reasonable, expected fix.

Bee Card Scheme Terms and Conditions, cll. 19, 34-35 and 63 — applies ONLY where the card is a BEE CARD (the ten-council joint scheme), never to AT HOP, Snapper or Metrocard

APPLIES ONLY where the card in this case is a Bee Card. Auckland is AT HOP, Wellington is Snapper and Christchurch is Metrocard; none of them is governed by these terms, so do not cite them there. The scheme publishes its own Terms and Conditions at beecard.co.nz/Pages/Terms; the clause text below was read there live and re-confirmed on 2026-09-08, and the numbering is unchanged. THE REFUND RIGHT IS NARROW AND YOU MUST NOT ASSERT IT BROADLY. There is no general right to have a Bee Card balance refunded. The scheme gives two routes and nothing else. CLAUSE 34 is the MANDATORY one and is where nearly every real case belongs: "We must provide a refund for unused Tickets or unused Bee Card Value if that is necessary to correct an error made by us." It carries NO identity test, NO registration requirement, NO surrender of the card, NO administration fee and NO hardship threshold. A failed reader, a default fare charged because the user could not tag off, a double tag, a wrong fare or a mis-applied top-up is a clause 34 error-correction claim, and it is the strongest thing available. Argue the facts of the error and ask them to put it right. CLAUSE 35 is a NARROW permission that opens only when EVERY limb holds together: "Otherwise you may only obtain a refund of unused Bee Card Value if the Bee Card is registered and you prove to our reasonable satisfaction that: you are the person to whom it is registered; and if a refund is not given you will suffer extreme financial hardship, and surrender the Bee Card to us and pay our administration fee (if any), which may not exceed our reasonable estimate of the cost of processing the refund." Registered card AND proven identity AND extreme financial hardship AND surrender of the physical card AND any administration fee. Do NOT cite clause 35 unless the user's own account supports the hardship limb, and never present it as an entitlement to their balance. Because the physical card has to be surrendered, a clause 35 request is lodged and then parks for the user to send the card in — say so rather than implying the money simply comes back. CLAUSE 19 governs an UNREGISTERED card: "no refunds are available except to correct a mistake we make". On an unregistered card, clause 34 is the ONLY route that exists. WHAT YOU MAY NOT WRITE. The terms give the user no general claim on the credit sitting on their card. Do not tell the operator that the scheme owes that credit to them, that they may require it to be paid out, that they may hand the card in and take the money as of right, or that the credit becomes returnable once they stop travelling, leave the region or no longer need the card. Clauses 19, 34 and 35 say none of that; the operator will correctly refuse a request put that way, and the user's case is worse for having made it. Where the user simply wants unused credit back and there is neither an error by the operator nor extreme hardship, say so plainly and ask for it as a DISCRETIONARY goodwill refund — never as a right. CLAUSE 63 closes one argument before you make it: "It will not be a breach of these Terms if you cannot use a Bee Card for a Journey because the Bee Scheme is not functional." A scheme outage is therefore not a contractual breach. If the outage caused a wrong charge, that is a clause 34 error, which is the route to use. TWO CLAUSES THAT LOOK LIKE PERMISSION TO ACT FOR SOMEONE AND ARE NOT — NEVER CITE EITHER. The Terms carry a heading literally called "Representatives", at clause 75: "All things which we may do under these Terms we can have done by our staff, contractors, and agents." Those are the COUNCILS' staff, contractors and agents. The clause says nothing about the cardholder's side and grants no authority to anyone acting for a customer. Separately, Baybus OnDemand in the Bay of Plenty advertises a "Book on Behalf" service — "Visit one of these participating organisations or businesses in your community to have a ride booked on your behalf" — which is a TRIP-BOOKING convenience and confers no authority to make a claim, a refund request or a complaint. Citing either as authority to act would assert a permission that does not exist. The letter is written in the consumer's own name in any event, so neither is needed.

Bee Card — the flat refusal published by Waikato Regional Council (Busit) and Horizons Regional Council (Connect)

APPLIES ONLY where the authority is Waikato Regional Council (trading as Busit) or Horizons Regional Council (trading as Connect). Each publishes, word for word: "No. We are unable to provide refunds. Please consider this when topping up your Bee Card." (Busit's line re-confirmed live at busit.co.nz/fares/beecard/ on 2026-09-08.) Both councils are parties to the Bee Card scheme terms above, so that blanket line refuses outright what clause 34 REQUIRES of them — correcting their own error — and forecloses even the narrow clause 35 route. THE ARGUMENT IS THAT CONTRADICTION: hold the council to the scheme it belongs to. It is NOT a claim that a refund is simply owed on the facts, and it does NOT widen clauses 34-35 into a general balance refund. Do not extend this entry to any other Bee Card council without first verifying that that council publishes the same refusal wording.

• A default fare was charged because a reader failed or you couldn't tag off
• You were charged twice / double-tagged
• Auto top-up charged you in error
• A faulty card or reader caused the problem
• Balance on a lost/stolen registered card should be transferred

Only raise what genuinely happened — a well-evidenced, honest request works best. Useful evidence: Your card number and the registered account email; The date, route and trip where it went wrong; Your transaction history showing the charge; Bank statement lines for any double charge.

If it can't be resolved directly, the only forum is the Disputes Tribunal, which you would need to file and attend yourself. We hand you a tidy file of the correspondence and arguments to take in.