Thief uses stolen card for 5 months

Carolyn Thompson and her 11-year-old daughter Briar who had her HOP bus card stolen from school in March. Photo / Richard Robinson

North Shore parent Carolyn Thompson cannot believe it took Auckland Transport more than five months to block the use of her daughter Briar's stolen Hop bus card.

She learned yesterday that the card, which she reported missing in March when it had just under $20 left on it, was drained of its final $2 by the thief on Tuesday.

That was just before Auckland Transport finally managed to block the card, after Mrs Thompson had called the Hop customer services centre more than a dozen times.

"The staff assured me the card would be stopped and issued a transfer voucher, via email, to allow the balance to be transferred over to a new card."

But Mrs Thompson said that meant travelling from Torbay to Britomart, which she was unable to do during her six-day working week as a music teacher. Meanwhile, she bought and paid money into a replacement Hop card and watched on the system's website as the balance kept shrinking on the stolen item.

She also wondered why she could not redeem her refund voucher without having to travel to Britomart.

The chief executive of card supplier Snapper Services, Miki Szikszai, said he had only just had the case referred to him, and he had yet to find the cause of the problem.

But he said Mrs Thompson would be sent a complimentary USB device for her to feed the full value of the transfer voucher into the new Hop card through her home computer.

He said Auckland Council was upgrading North Shore visitor information sites at Orewa, Takapuna and Devonport so transfer vouchers could be redeemed there.