Snapper - Anyone Using It?

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Snapper - Anyone Using It?

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137 posts

Master Geek
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#150403 22-Jul-2008 17:17

Having been watching this with interest the last few weeks. Have noticed some people using the USB sticks but all seem to have problems when they leave.

Any of those using it finding it a problem when you get off the bus? Not a big deal if you're on a Railway Station bus and you get off in Lambton Quay but going back home might be an issue if I got done for 4 Zones when I went 2 zones.

I'm very keen to get one though.

Am wondering though, whats to stop you getting on the bus, walking to the back and "logging out" of the bus while you find your seat at the back?

Nightwyrm

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#150432 22-Jul-2008 18:35

Current list of live Snapper-enabled merchants (as at 22/07):

Merchant	Location
AB Fast Food	AA Centre, 342 Lambton Quay
Alissa's Patisserie	45 Courtenay Place
Ape Espresso	Tory St.
Café Mamba	Plimmer Steps
Nic Nacs	128 Cuba St.
Pasta Pasta	45 The Terrace
Vivace Espresso	153 Featherston St.
Wishbone	Cnr of 95 Customhouse Quay & Hunter St.
Wishbone	James Cook Arcade
Wishbone	330 Lambton Quay
Wishbone	43 The Terrace
Wishbone	15 Dixon St.
Wishbone	1 The Terrace
Wishbone	7 Woodward St.
Wishbone	98 Lambton Quay
Wishbone	139 Featherston St.
Wishbone	Mercer St.
Brooklyn Foodmarket*	57 Cleveland St.
City Stop*	107 Manners St.
City Stop*	126 The Terrace
Groom Barbers	Tinakori Rd.
Kelburn Foursquare*	97a Upland Rd.
Khandallah Superette*	11 Station Rd.
Kirby’s Candies*	BNZ Centre, 1 Willis St.
Kircaldie & Stains*	165-177 Lambton Quay
Kwick e-mart*	Dixon St
Mall Drycleaners*	20 Victoria St.
Mall Drycleaners*	80 Tory St.
Mall Drycleaners*	Midland Park, Johnson St.
Mall Drycleaners*	Molesworth St.
Manners Mags & Lotto*	78-86 Manners St.
Mi Sushi	70 The Terrace
Ngaio Supermarket*	1 Khandallah Rd.
Onepu Road Dairy*	142 Onepu Rd
Pop in Dairy*	144 Rongotai Rd.
Ramji Store*	Coutts St., Rongotai
San Jewellery*	32 Manners St. and James Smith Building
Strathmore Dairy*	508a Broadway
Toll NZ*	Railway Station (bus tickets only – not train tickets)
Uni Stop*	Easterfield Building – 21-63 Kelburn Parade
Vic Books*	Student Union Building – Victoria University
Willis Lunch Bar*	178 Willis St.
Mt Vic Foodmarket*	45 Brougham St

* denotes a NZ Bus agent

Post-geek, opinionated mediaphile, and natural born cynic. Jack of all genres, master of none.

billgates

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#150440 22-Jul-2008 18:56

basically it's an eftpos card but with no pin no? unified? everyone also accepts eftpos except for buses. And if someone steals your wallet/purse they can misuse it big time without needing any pin no? (I am assuming it has no pin no just like the bus cards). I want a card that is seprate for public transport and end it at that. Would rather use my eftpos card with a pin no for other shopping needs....

Do whatever you want to do man.

alasta

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#150450 22-Jul-2008 19:20

billgates: basically it's an eftpos card but with no pin no? unified? everyone also accepts eftpos except for buses. And if someone steals your wallet/purse they can misuse it big time without needing any pin no? (I am assuming it has no pin no just like the bus cards). I want a card that is seprate for public transport and end it at that. Would rather use my eftpos card with a pin no for other shopping needs....

Because for small purchases Eftpos is too slow and clumsy. Would you honestly use your Eftpos card if you were just buying a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread?

billgates

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#150452 22-Jul-2008 19:34

alasta:
billgates: basically it's an eftpos card but with no pin no? unified? everyone also accepts eftpos except for buses. And if someone steals your wallet/purse they can misuse it big time without needing any pin no? (I am assuming it has no pin no just like the bus cards). I want a card that is seprate for public transport and end it at that. Would rather use my eftpos card with a pin no for other shopping needs....

Because for small purchases Eftpos is too slow and clumsy. Would you honestly use your Eftpos card if you were just buying a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread?

Honestly would, problem is this is insecure and big time too...4 digits which would take 5 seconds and another 5 seconds for the operator to enter details into the eftpos (if it's manual). It's my opinion though and security is first priority for me. Bascially if you lose that $20 card, what can you do? website states it's like cash, if you lost it, you lose it....

Do whatever you want to do man.

Bung

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#150454 22-Jul-2008 19:52

billgates: It's my opinion though and security is first priority for me. Bascially if you lose that $20 card, what can you do? website states it's like cash, if you lost it, you lose it....

You can register the card so that you'd only lose the amount used to the end of the day it was lost. Snapper is an RF card not a swipe so it never needs to leave your wallet. How many people walk off leaving their EFTPOS or Credit cards behind now?

billgates

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#150458 22-Jul-2008 20:03

Bung:
billgates: It's my opinion though and security is first priority for me. Bascially if you lose that $20 card, what can you do? website states it's like cash, if you lost it, you lose it....

You can register the card so that you'd only lose the amount used to the end of the day it was lost. Snapper is an RF card not a swipe so it never needs to leave your wallet. How many people walk off leaving their EFTPOS or Credit cards behind now?

1/10,000 literally, which is a very good number...and I am not kidding. Working in the retail enviorment for the last 9 years....from all sorts of different customer service jobs....I saw possibly 1~2 cards which people forgot. Working at DSE for the last year n half and only seen 2 cards ever forgotten where majority of the purchases are through eftpos/credit card....I guess once I use the snapper (when avail in Hamilton), I will get to use it and see how it goes....

Do whatever you want to do man.

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wellygary

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#150472 22-Jul-2008 20:34

billgates:
Bung:
billgates: It's my opinion though and security is first priority for me. Bascially if you lose that $20 card, what can you do? website states it's like cash, if you lost it, you lose it....

You can register the card so that you'd only lose the amount used to the end of the day it was lost. Snapper is an RF card not a swipe so it never needs to leave your wallet. How many people walk off leaving their EFTPOS or Credit cards behind now?

1/10,000 literally, which is a very good number...and I am not kidding. Working in the retail enviorment for the last 9 years....from all sorts of different customer service jobs....I saw possibly 1~2 cards which people forgot. Working at DSE for the last year n half and only seen 2 cards ever forgotten where majority of the purchases are through eftpos/credit card....I guess once I use the snapper (when avail in Hamilton), I will get to use it and see how it goes....

You have a choice with snapper, you can leave it unregistered, and it is the same as cash, you load it at merchants, you lose you card you lose whatever is loaded,

Or.. you register it, you can them load it at home via a bank account, ( the link only goes one way), then if you lose the card, you can have it disabled and the money transferred to a new card,

Snapper is being run by the Bus company in wellington ( infratil owned NZ bus), so I wouldn't expect to see it in Hamiltron until it spreads to other bus companies, ( They also own busses in Auckland so it might go there next)

alasta

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#150477 22-Jul-2008 20:52

billgates: website states it's like cash, if you lost it, you lose it....

Exactly. It's like cash.

Now how many people do you know who would refuse to ever carry cash on them out of fear that they may lose it? The purpose of this product is for people to quickly and conveniently make small purchases, so I personally wouldn't expect to ever load more than $50 on mine. In fact there is an inherent security advantage in that your liability is limited by the amount of credit on the card.

When used for its intended purpose I believe that it would be paranoid to think that there is any greater security risk in using Snapper than there would be with conventional forms of tender.

TinyTim

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#150565 23-Jul-2008 10:02

So they've finally started selling the cards. The bus I catch in the morning is one of the old 1980s clunkers, the Snapper terminals make it look even older. They light it up like a Christmas tree in the early morning darkness. The new ticket machine with touch screen bloops away, it's probably going to drive the driver crazy.

The 25% discount on the single fare is better than the 2 zone 20% 10-trip discount which is nice. It's going to help the monthly pass users too: it deducts the individual trip fares until it hits the monthly fare cap, then it deducts nothing further (so they say).

None of the shops I currently use are listed so will have to go hunting.

Nightwyrm

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#150582 23-Jul-2008 11:05

FYI, the USB Snappers are pretty tiny (36mm x 12mm x 3mm) and are quite a tight fit into a USB port.

Ours came on a little bungie to hang off our keyring or whatever. If you get one of these, I'd recommend upgrading the bungie to somehting a little more robust as we've already encountered some snappage (no pun intended

).

As the bank where I work is quite heavily involved in the piloting of Snapper, I've probably got access to some extra information if anyone has any questions (within reason of course).

Post-geek, opinionated mediaphile, and natural born cynic. Jack of all genres, master of none.

TinyTim

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#150588 23-Jul-2008 11:21

lugh:As the bank where I work is quite heavily involved in the piloting of Snapper, I've probably got access to some extra information if anyone has any questions (within reason of course).

Why all the delays? There have been rumours the encryuption was broken but I understand that was a different system. Have there been technology problems or is it agent problems or something else?

tchart

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#150593 23-Jul-2008 11:33

alasta: Would you honestly use your Eftpos card if you were just buying a bottle of milk or a loaf of bread?

Um yeah I would and Im pretty sure I'm not alone. Carrying cash is a rariety for me and I pay for everything using eftpos. I even paid for $1 worth of stamps at the Post Shop the other day.

Unless you are insane or your bank is in the dark ages you shouldnt be paying anything to use eftpos. I dont but I suppose if I was paying 15c per transaction I would rethink the situation.

Bung

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#150619 23-Jul-2008 12:52

TinyTim:Why all the delays? There have been rumours the encryuption was broken but I understand that was a different system. Have there been technology problems or is it agent problems or something else?

Apparently it's the commission the sellers will get compared with what they get with the current tickets/passes and the commission the shops using Snapper will be expected to pay that are being argued down to the last minute.

TinyTim

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#150634 23-Jul-2008 13:38

Bung:
TinyTim:Why all the delays? There have been rumours the encryuption was broken but I understand that was a different system. Have there been technology problems or is it agent problems or something else?

Apparently it's the commission the sellers will get compared with what they get with the current tickets/passes and the commission the shops using Snapper will be expected to pay that are being argued down to the last minute.

There have been plenty of reports that they haven't been happy. (Wasn't sure if it was the cause for the delay or not.) Here's why: (from http://www.retail.org.nz/...Retailers.pdf)

Bus tickets:
Currently retailers selling ten trip tickets receive 3% of the sales value. NZ Bus will
cease issuing ten trip tickets in the months to come. With Snapper Card the
retailer will receive $1.50 when the card is first sold. If we take a two zone, ten trip
ticket as the average purchase, the retailer would make the $1.50 off the sale of 2
½ ten trip tickets. If we were to assume that our two zone customer purchased 40
ten trip tickets per year, under the current system, the annual commission is $24.
If we were to assume the customer tops up weekly then the commission will be
$9.50 annually (40 top ups @ $0.20 and the initial $1.50 for the sale of the card) for
the re-loadable Snapper Card.

Non-bus:
There will be a transaction fee of 1% for Snapper transactions of this type. This would
compare with no fee for an eftpos transaction or the cash handling fee and loss through
theft for cash transactions. The Snapper Card is unlikely to be used instead of a credit
card.

Conclusion
We don’t believe the financial model has been well thought through from a retail
merchant perspective. Although the top up fee provides some revenue opportunity
this may be negated by the 1% transaction fee to be paid by retailers, and the
higher cost structure for terminals.

Personally it looks as though someone is making a lot of money out of Snapper. You don't have to pay to recharge Oyster cards and the purchase price (deposit they call it) is lower. Ditto Singapore (except for credit card recharges). Don't know about HK, Korea.

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