Prepayment wristband and computer debit system
First Claim
1. A transaction system, comprising:
- at least one article usable in lieu of money, said article being attachable to a user and bearing an identification, and said article being usable for financial transactions to purchase goods and services for a predetermined period of time;
a computerized accounting system programmed to initialize an account associated with said article when issued to a user, said accounting system being programmed to accept said identification of said article and a date of issuance of said article to the user and programmed to maintain in association therewith an initial monetary value to be credited to the associated account; and
said accounting system being programmed to thereafter respond to a purchase transaction for a predetermined period of time after issuance of said article to the user by accepting said identification of said article in conjunction with a monetary value of a purchase and arithmetically debiting a balance maintained in the associated account in the computerized accounting system in association with the article identification.
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0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A financial transaction system that does not require the need for cash, checks or credit cards to carry out financial transactions. In return for prepayment of specified sum, a bar coded wristband is issued to a customer. On issuance of the wristband, a data base record is created that is cross-referenced with the bar code number, as well as an account number, an issue date and a present balance of the account. When the user wishes to purchase goods or services, the bar code of the wristband is scanned, and the amount of the transaction is then placed into the system. The corresponding account is debited. The wristband is constructed so as to be waterproof, and includes an adhesive strip with small tear strips for fastening around the user'"'"'s wrist. An attempted removal of the wristband is effective to substantially destroy it and render it unusable to other persons.
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Citations
12 Claims
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1. A transaction system, comprising:
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at least one article usable in lieu of money, said article being attachable to a user and bearing an identification, and said article being usable for financial transactions to purchase goods and services for a predetermined period of time;
a computerized accounting system programmed to initialize an account associated with said article when issued to a user, said accounting system being programmed to accept said identification of said article and a date of issuance of said article to the user and programmed to maintain in association therewith an initial monetary value to be credited to the associated account; and
said accounting system being programmed to thereafter respond to a purchase transaction for a predetermined period of time after issuance of said article to the user by accepting said identification of said article in conjunction with a monetary value of a purchase and arithmetically debiting a balance maintained in the associated account in the computerized accounting system in association with the article identification. - View Dependent Claims (2)
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3. A method of carrying out financial transactions, comprising the steps of issuing an article usable in lieu of money, attachable to a user, having an identification thereon;
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inputting the article identification and a predetermined time period for use thereof into a computer data base;
associating the article identification in the data base with an account; and
in response to a request for the purchase of goods or services by a user of the attachable article, inputting the article identification into the computer data base and comparing if a time of the request for the purchase is within said predetermined time period, and if so, debiting the account in the data base by the requested purchase amount of the good or services. - View Dependent Claims (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A transaction system, comprising:
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a plurality of attachable articles, attachable to respective persons, said attachable articles each providing a machine readable identification thereon that is unique with respect to each other;
a reader for reading the identification of the attachable article;
a computer system programmed to associate the plural identifications with a single account; and
said computer system being programmed so as to be responsive to receipt of any one of the identifications for accessing the single account and debiting the account according to a respective transaction cost, and providing a resulting current balance of the account, whereby financial transactions can be carried out without using cash. - View Dependent Claims (12)
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Specification