Smartcard strife as Snapper gets snappy

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NOT SO SMART: Snapper Services, a smartcard business set up by Infratil, appears to have further alienated a group of Wellington inner-city retailers after issuing a threat - later withdrawn - not to deal with Paddy's Lotto and Post shop owner Chandra Patel.

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Snapper Services, a smartcard business set up by Infratil, appears to have shot itself in the fin and further alienated a group of Wellington inner-city retailers after issuing a threat - later withdrawn - not to deal with Paddy's Lotto and Post shop owner Chandra Patel.

Mr Patel had allowed his photograph to be published in The Dominion Post alongside a story in which retailers aired criticisms of Snapper's commission structure.

Ticket agents for Go Wellington, the bus company Infratil also owns, each stand to lose thousands of dollars once 10-trip bus tickets are phased out in favour of the hi-tech Snapper smartcard, which can be used to pay for bus travel and some small eftpos purchases from the start of next month.

Five retailers held a meeting with Snapper on Friday at which the retailers hoped to secure concessions.

Mr Patel said a Snapper manager instead informed them that whoever appeared in the newspaper photograph would be excluded from the smartcard scheme.

Bharat Patel, owner of Freeman Lotto and Post, who was also at the meeting, said he stood up and told Snapper's manager that was unfair.

Go Wellington ticket agents had little to lose and the five retailers would stick together, he said.

"If he doesn't include him as an agent, none of us will go with him, simple as that. Threats in this democracy to someone like this, is not right."

Bharat Patel, who requested the meeting, did not want the public to think they were concerned only about their commissions.

"If Snapper doesn't get launched the way it should be, there will be public havoc and the implications would be on retailers as well as Go Wellington."

Retailers Association chief executive John Albertson said Snapper appeared high-handed, according to the retailers' version of events.

"People have got to be able to have their say."

Snapper Services general manager Charles Monheim said he was not at the meeting and did not know what was said. He would not look into the claims in order to comment on them.

Whether or not the threat was made, "it seems to me that is something to be discussed between the parties in the context of the negotiations", he said.

"We are not going to negotiate these things through the newspaper."

Go Wellington commercial director Ian Turner was also at the meeting. Bharat Patel said he did not take part in the exchange.

Megan McSweeney, a spokeswoman for Go Wellington, would not comment. "The relationship ... is between Snapper and the Snapper merchant network that they create," she said.

"It is obviously inappropriate for me to make any comment on anything alleged to be said by another company."

Chandra Patel said the Snapper manager who issued the threat subsequently visited his shop and said he could still join the scheme, as the story had been "factual".

- © Fairfax NZ News