There are not many places where you can get your car re­paired in the wee, small hours on a Sun­day.

So if your joint bank ac­count is show­ing up late-night pur­chases at Carparts Ltd, your sig­nif­i­cant other might be spend­ing his nights down at the strip club.

In or­der to hide clients’ trips to the lo­cal skin bar, many of those busi­nesses use an alias on any eft­pos or credit card trans­ac­tions they process.

So a lap dance at Show­girls near Auck­land’s Brit­o­mart, for ex­am­ple, will ap­pear on a bank state­ment as shop­ping un­der the alias Carparts Ltd.

Up the road at Hush round of drinks for the show up on your card as a pay­ment to Hob­son St Brasserie.

And en­try at Cal­en­dar Girls in Auck­land will be listed as a fee charged to Casino Bar (No.2) Ltd.

The code names are all about con­fi­den­tial­ity for the clien­tele, says Jac­qui Le Prou, for­mer owner of the Cal­en­dar Girls string of strip clubs in Auck­land, Welling­ton and Christchurch.

‘‘ It is of ut­most im­por­tance to keep the client’s time and spend­ing in the clubs pri­vate, so they feel they can do so with­out a stigma be­ing cast upon them.’’

The alias keeps the in­for­ma­tion safe from banks and busi­nesses as well as part­ners.

Cal­en­dar Girls in Christchurch is pro­cessed as Alan Samson Ltd – the name of Le Prou’s ex-hus­band and cur­rent owner, who has served prison time on metham­phetamine charges.

While those in the in­dus­try are not ashamed of their busi­ness, strip clubs are still seen as smutty in some cor­ners of so­ci­ety, Le Prou says.

‘‘The in­dus­try has come a long way from what it was 10 or 20 years ago. Men and women are a lot more ac­cept­ing of the go­ings-on in a strip club. With say­ing that, there are still a ton of peo­ple out there that do not and will not ac­cept it.’’

Le Prou says a lot of thought went into the use of Casino Bar, so that records of late- night pur­chases Hush, a lads will wouldn’t come across as sus­pi­cious.

‘‘The busi­ness name for Cal­en­dar Girls was im­por­tant. We wanted some­thing that wouldn’t be ques­tioned too much, what­ever the time of the day or night,’’ she says.

‘‘ I have def­i­nitely thought that some com­pa­nies have not thought about their name very well.’’

Grant Bug­den, owner of Show­girls in Auck­land, re­fused to com­ment on the nam­ing of his com­pany as Carparts Ltd.

But it’s some­thing prac­ti­cally all strip clubs ap­pear to do. The Club in Queen­stown is an ex­cep­tion, show­ing up undis­guised as The Club.

In Tau­ranga, vis­its to Karma will show up as spend­ing in the City Sports Bar in the same build­ing down­stairs.

Like Cal­en­dar Girls and Show­girls, Dream­girls in Welling­ton uses its reg­is­tered com­pany name for bank­ing trans­ac­tions. Its charges ap­pear as Splitrock Ltd.

The same goes for New Ply­mouth strip club Crave, trans­ac­tions ap­pear un­der its com­pany name, PEL.

Owner Lau­reen O’Brien said the bank­ing de­tails were some­thing pun­ters didn’t seem too wor­ried about – she had far more ques­tions about whether any­one can see the wrist stamp and what it says.

Owner Lau­reen O’Brien said the bank­ing de­tails were some­thing pun­ters didn’t seem too wor­ried about – she had far more ques­tions about whether any­one can see the wrist stamp and what it says.

But the UV stamp, vis­i­ble only un­der ul­travi­o­let lights, is an­other way to dis­guise a visit to a strip club. Pa­trons will not wake up the next morn­ing with an inky mark prov­ing where they went the night be­fore.

The coun­try’s south­ern­most strip club, Di­vas, is maybe the most play­ful with its billing. The punter’s bank state­ment will say: ‘‘ Have a nice day.’’ We wanted some­thing that wouldn’t be ques­tioned too much, what­ever the time of the day or night.

For­mer owner of Cal­en­dar Girls