Point-of-sale location check for payment card purchases

• US 10,032,151 B2
• Filed: 05/28/2014
• Issued: 07/24/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/28/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Lau, Priscilla, Kotecha, Lalit R., Sanjeev, Kumar, Li, Mingxing S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Crawley, Talia F
• Application Number:
  US14/289,229
• Publication Number:
  US 20150347999A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,518 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/32 using wireless devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3224 Transactions dependent on location of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/327 Short range or proximity payments by means of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3278 RFID or NFC payments by means of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4014 Identity check for transactions

Abstract

Credit card fraud prevention techniques are disclosed in which the authorization of a payment card may be performed using information obtained from a mobile device (e.g., a smart phone) associated with a user who initiates a point-of-sale payment card transaction. In one implementation, a device may receive a request for authorization of a payment associated with a payment card; and obtain location information relating to a location of a mobile device associated with a user of the payment card. The device may determine, based at least on a location of the point-of-sale terminal and the location of the mobile device, whether to authorize the request for authorization of the payment.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by one or more devices and from a point-of-sale terminal, a request for authorization of a payment associated with a payment card;

obtaining, by the one or more devices, location information relating to a location of a mobile device associated with a user of the payment card;

receiving, from the point-of-sale terminal, additional information obtained from the mobile device, the additional information including biometric information associated with a user of the mobile device or a unique identifier of the mobile device, wherein receiving the additional information includes;

obtaining the additional information based on the point-of-sale terminal wirelessly connecting to a plurality of mobile devices in a vicinity of the point-of-sale terminal and automatically obtaining, without explicit user interaction, the additional information from each of the plurality of the mobile devices in the vicinity of the point-of-sale terminal, and

filtering the additional information, obtained from the plurality of mobile devices, to remove the additional information corresponding to those of the plurality of mobile devices that are not the mobile device associated with the user of the payment card;

determining, by the one or more devices and based at least on a location of the point-of-sale terminal, the location of the mobile device, and the additional information, whether to authorize the request for authorization of the payment; and

transmitting, by one or more devices and to the point-of-sale terminal, a result of the determination of whether to authorize the payment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the request includes an indication of a location of the point-of-sale terminal.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the determination of whether to authorize the request for authorization of the payment further includes:

determining a distance between the location of the point-of-sale terminal and the location of the mobile device, wherein the result of the determination of whether to authorize the payment is a declined authorization when the distance is greater than a threshold.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein obtaining the location information further comprises:

identifying the mobile device based on the request for authorization of the payment; and

querying, based on the identification of the mobile device, a mobile device location server for the location of the mobile device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the mobile device location server is a server operated by a telecommunications provider that provides cellular network connectivity to the mobile device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the additional information obtained from the mobile device additionally includes a passcode entered by a user of the mobile device.

7. A system comprising:

a non-transitory memory device storing computer-executable instructions; and

one or more processors configured to execute the computer-executable instructions, wherein executing the computer-executable instructions causes the one or more processors to;

receive, from a point-of-sale terminal, a request for authorization of a payment associated with a payment card;

obtain location information relating to a location of a mobile device associated with a user of the payment card;

receive, from the point-of-sale terminal, additional information obtained from the mobile device, the additional information including biometric information associated with a user of the mobile device or a unique identifier of the mobile device, wherein receiving the additional information includes;

obtaining the additional information based on the point-of-sale terminal wirelessly connecting to a plurality of mobile devices in a vicinity of the point-of-sale terminal and automatically obtaining, without explicit user interaction, the additional information from each of the plurality of the mobile devices in the vicinity of the point-of-sale terminal, and

filtering the additional information, obtained from the plurality of mobile devices, to remove the additional information corresponding to those of the plurality of mobile devices that are not the mobile device associated with the user of the payment card;

determine, based at least on a location of the point-of-sale terminal, the location of the mobile device, and the additional information, whether to authorize the request for authorization of the payment; and

transmit, to the point-of-sale terminal, a result of the determination of whether to authorize the payment.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the request includes an indication of a location of the point-of-sale terminal.

9. The system of claim 7, wherein, when determining to authorize the request for authorization of the payment, the computer-executable instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

determine a distance between the location of the point-of-sale terminal and the location of the mobile device, wherein the result of the determination of whether to authorize the payment is a declined authorization when the distance is greater than a threshold.

10. The system of claim 7, wherein, when obtaining the location information, the computer-executable instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

identify the mobile device based on the request for authorization of the payment; and

query, based on the identification of the mobile device, a mobile device location server for the location of the mobile device.

11. The system of claim 7, wherein the additional information obtained from the mobile device additionally includes a passcode entered by a user of the mobile device.

12. A method comprising:

receiving, by a point-of-sale terminal and from a particular mobile device, a first request to authorize payment for merchandise via a payment card, the request including information identifying the payment card;

establishing, by the point-of-sale terminal, a local wireless connection with a plurality of mobile devices, including the particular mobile device, in a vicinity of the point-of-sale terminal;

automatically obtaining, without explicit user interaction, by the point-of-sale terminal and via the local wireless connection, information from each of the plurality of mobile devices in the vicinity of the point-of-sale terminal, wherein the information from the plurality of mobile devices includes biometric information associated with users of the plurality of mobile devices or unique identifiers of the plurality of mobile devices;

transmitting, by the point-of-sale terminal and to an authorization server, a second request to authorize payment for the merchandise via the payment card, the second request including the information identifying the payment card and the information that was automatically obtained from the plurality of mobile devices;

receiving, by the point-of-sale terminal, a response to the second request; and

authorizing or declining, by the point-of-sale terminal and based on the response, the first request to authorize payment for the merchandise.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the local wireless connection includes a Near Field Communication (NFC), Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth, or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connection.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the information from the particular mobile device includes a fingerprint of the user of the particular mobile device or an image of a face of the user of the particular mobile device.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the second request additionally includes a location of the point-of-sale terminal.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the response to the second request is based at least on the information identifying the payment card, the information from the mobile device, and a location of the mobile device, the location of the mobile device being determined by the authorization server.

17. The method of claim 12, further including:

filtering, by the point-of-sale terminal, the information obtained from each of the plurality of mobile devices, to remove information corresponding to those of the plurality of mobile devices that are not the particular mobile device.