A Tauranga woman is hoping she hasn't cost a Bayhopper employee their job after a $10 top-up to her bus card credited her with more than $20,000.

Regular transport user Nathana Rodriques, 22, handed a Bayhopper bus driver $10 to top-up her Smartride card on Tuesday, reports TV 3.

The Bayhopper bus ticket showing $20,979.88 remaining. Photo: Nathana Rodriques (pintrest).

'When I got the docket it said that I topped up and there was $11.24 left,” she explains.

According to the Baybus website, travellers must buy a minimum of $10 worth of credit for a smartride card.

To add credit to a smartride card, the user gives the driver the cash amount and asks them to top-up the card.

'Be clear exactly how much you want loaded on to the card,” reads the website statement.

But when she paid her fare on a bus earlier this week, her ticket said she had a remaining balance of $20,979.88.

'I thought that the print out was wrong, so I didn't bother with it,” says Nathana.

'But then yesterday afternoon when I got on, I was down to $20,978.44.”

Shocked by her discovery, Nathana sought help from Baybus when she got home.

'This dude answered,” she says, 'and he was very calm and collected. He wasn't making a big deal out of it.”

She was asked to provide details from her tickets.

'I was kind of like, ‘I hope I didn't lose someone their job because $20,000 is a big deal'.

'I think it was just a total mishap,” she adds.

Nathana says Baybus had told her they would resolve the issue, but she is yet to hear anything further.

On her Twitter account, Nathana has posted a link to the TV3 story saying 'so yeah, this happened to me…” and has already updated her tag line as ‘Accidental receiver of 20k'.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council are investigating the incident this morning.