Random Contactless Payments Deductions / Extremely Poor Handling from AT Hop Staff
James Welsh made this Official Information request to Auckland Transport
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From: James Welsh
Dear Auckland Transport,
I am writing with concerns about the inability to process refunds through the "Contactless Payment" system in a reasonable time-frame, and what efforts are being made to address this issue.
Timeframe: For the start of Year 2025 - to end of 2025
Firstly, what is a reasonable timeframe from Auckland Transport perspectives to handle and process a refund?
Have you met your reasonable expectations of resolving refund requests this year?
Has the AT Hop Management had any form of meetings discussing the Refunds? If so, what was the outcome of those meetings?
What is the number of refund requests received by disputing an AT HOP transaction through the AT HOP web site ("Request a Refund" for Contactless Payments), and if possible split out by the customer reason selected (Forgot to tag off/Wrong Fare/Another reason).
The number of these refund requests that were accepted and processed.
The number of these refund requests that were declined, and the proportion of these that the customer was informed and if possible, split out by the reasons why the refund was declined.
The average duration for a refund request to be responded to.
How many requests for a refund for incorrect charges have been created?
How many requests for a refund have been processed successfully?
How many requests for a refund have been processed unsuccessfully?
How many escalation cases has your management handled in regards to Payment disputes?
How many of these requests were made in regards to members of the public reporting "Random Charges" on their bank statements despite not taking Public Transport?
How many of these requests were made in regards to members of the public reporting "Duplicate Charges" on their bank statements despite taking a single fare?
--
Regarding record-keeping, there are concerns that many of your Staff are not leaving notes of interactions with members of the public or phone calls. For example, one staff member shared that Outbound calls are not recorded and Managers do not take "transfers" - hence opting for a "Outbound" call.
Are calls made from employees and management working from home via “Outbound” recorded?
Are calls made to employees and management working from home via “Inbound” recorded?
Are calls made from employees and management working from Office via “Outbound” recorded?
Are calls made to employees and management working from Office via “Inbound” recorded?
Are all Front-line staff expected to leave a detailed note of an interaction?
Are all Manager's expected to leave a detailed note of an interaction?
Is it standard practice that a Contact Centre Manager refuses to take a phone call via "Transfer" and only offers "Callback" functionality? If so, why is that standard practice?
Is it unreasonable for a member of the public to ask to remain on "Hold" and wait for a callback - instead of being forced into a "Callback" despite the Manager being able and ready to take the call in real time?
Is it standard practice that a Manager does not know if what the "Public" email is for AT?
Can a manager refuse to provide an e-mail address for Public use to send queries?
Are managers familiar with their own organizations contact information?
Is it standard practice for a Manager to refuse to provide their "First" name? How about their last name?
Could you please also provide a full list of "Training Modules" that Contact Centre Manager's have taken in the year 2025?
Could you please provide a list of full names (first and last names) of management that operate in the Contact Centre including their professional email addresses?
Yours faithfully,
James Welsh
From: AT Official Information (AT)
Auckland Transport
Kia ora James,
Auckland Transport (AT) acknowledges receipt of your request for
official information dated 19 December 2025 regarding Contactless Payment
deductions.
To comply with our statutory obligation, our decision is due to you by
10 February 2026. This is 20 working days after the day your request was
received. If we are unable to make a decision within this timeframe, we
will be in contact. Please note this includes the summer holiday
close-down period from 20 December 2025 to 10 January 2026, Auckland
Anniversary on 26 January 2026, and Waitangi Day on 6 February 2026 as
this period is classed as non-working days.
We will be in contact at our earliest convenience if we require
clarification, or if your requested information is held by another agency.
Your case will be managed by Ashleigh, who is one of our LGOIMA Business
Partners. If you have any further queries, you can contact the team on
(09) 355 3553 during business hours, quoting Local Government Official
Information request number CAS-1262035-C2M9L8.
Ngâ mihi,
Ane | LGOIMA Support
Customer and Network Performance
Auckland Transport
20 Viaduct Harbour Avenue, Auckland 1010
[1]www.at.govt.nz
[2]image
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From: AT Official Information (AT)
Auckland Transport
Kia ora James
I’ve attached the official information you asked for
On 19 December 2025 you asked for information on Contactless Payments.
Please find attached a response from Phil Wratt.
Should you believe that we have not dealt with your request appropriately,
you are able to make a complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman in
accordance with section 27(3) of the LGOIMA Act and seek an investigation
and review in regard to this matter.
You can contact the Ombudsman at [1]www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
If you have any further queries, simply reply to this email leaving the
subject line as it is. We’ll make sure this information is added to your
case.
Ngā mihi
Ashleigh
LGOIMA Business Partner
Auckland Transport
20 Viaduct Harbour Avenue, Auckland 1010
[2]www.at.govt.nz
Important notice: The contents of this email and any attachments may be
confidential and subject to legal privilege. If you have received this
email message in error please notify us immediately and erase all copies
of the message and attachments; any use, disclosure or copying of this
message or attachments is prohibited. Any views expressed in this email
may be those of the individual sender and may not necessarily reflect the
views of Auckland Transport.
References
Visible links
1. https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/
2. https://www.at.govt.nz/
From: James Welsh
Dear AT Official Information (AT),
This is an extremely disappointing response given the length of time it has taken to respond, as you have literally responded on the final day and appear to have rushed this piece without doing any real research.
I would like to remind you that in 2017 you were able to document this information and publish it in response to another FYI request which then became a media scene: https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/9688254...
You need to provide the same equivalence as that 2017 request but for 2025 please.
If there was more than $1 million dollars worth of missed tag off fees in 2017 at a maximum rate of $5.04 per penalty, I would like to know what Auckland Transport has been able to profit since the no tag off was increased to roughly $30 if not more.
I do not believe that you're being truthful when you state that this is too time consuming and that each individual case needs an individual review - how were you able to do this back in 2017 but you can't in 2025? Technology improves with time.
Also, I am confused by your response in regards to the call recordings, as you did not respond to the question itself you merely provided a "half-answer" and leaving the rest to the readers interpretation - can you please just state in text writing wherever or not your managers are recording phone calls when they make outbound complaint callbacks from home? You responded by stating "Only employees working in the Contact Centre have access to call recording functionality". If that's the case, is it standard practice for your managers to do complaint callbacks when working from home as this way their call isn't recorded?
I also asked for a list of managers and you only provided Henry, Henry isn't the only manager at Auckland Transport - who are the rest that manage these complaints / refunds?
Yours sincerely,
James Welsh
From: AT Official Information (AT)
Auckland Transport
Hi James,
Thank you for your email.
Your request dated 19 November 2025 was for information regarding “Random
Contactless Payments Deductions / Extremely Poor Handling from AT Hop
Staff” to which we catered our response to.
The article you referenced from 2017 ([1]More than one million missed Hop
tags last year, AT says | Stuff), pertains to missing HOP tag offs. You
had requested the number of refund requests received by disputing an AT
HOP transaction through the AT HOP website ("Request a Refund" for
Contactless Payments), ideally categorised by customer reasons (Forgot to
tag off/Wrong Fare/Another reason). Please note that contactless payment
refunds and HOP card missing tags are very separate data sets.
We're happy to provide you with the number of missing HOP card tag-off
data. Could you please confirm if there is a further breakdown of
information you would like for this request?
Unfortunately, as mentioned in our letter dated 10 February 2026, we are
unable to provide you the number of successful/unsuccessful contactless
payment refunds as this would take a substantial amount of time, this is
the same for HOP cards, I can confirm that HOP Missing tags are generally
processed a refund. We have introduced a number of improvements on the HOP
Refunds policy since 2017.
For clarification around phone call recordings, any manager working in the
contact centre have access to Genesys (our call recording system).
Managers in other business units across Auckland Transport do not have
access to Genesys and will not have their phone calls recorded. There may
be times when a manager from the Contact Centre will use their cell phone
for calls; these are not recorded, but notes should be made in the
customer's profile with details of the call.
To provide further context, Henry is the only manager in the Contact
Centre and manages the staff who took your phone call. Áine Hodgson, the
Manager of Customer Care, Case Management, who you spoke to, Manages HOP
Customer Care. We also have Phil Wratt, the Customer Care Engagement
Manager who manages Formal Complaints and that the LGOIMA Teams.
Please clarify that you would like to have the data for all missing tags,
and the period that you would like this for, once you have confirmed this,
we will have a new request raised in our system for you.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Ashleigh
------------------- Original Message
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message or attachments is prohibited. Any views expressed in this email
may be those of the individual sender and may not necessarily reflect the
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https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/9688254...
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