Method and apparatus for facilitating acquistion of prospective payoff information on an existing loan account
First Claim
1. An apparatus for facilitating acquisition of prospective payoff information on an existing loan account, comprising:
- an input device;
an output device;
a storage device;
a processor connected to the input device, to the output device, and to the storage device storing a program for controlling the processor;
the processor being operative with the program to receive information identifying a requester;
receive information identifying a loan servicer, including an electronic address;
receive information identifying a loan account;
build a payoff-statement request document based on the received information;
store information regarding the request document; and
output the request document.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus for facilitating acquisition of prospective payoff information on an existing loan account is disclosed. In a preferred embodiment, a stand-alone computer system enables a user to conveniently create, store, print and manage payoff-statement requests. In another preferred embodiment, a central controller connected to the Internet enables a remote user to create, store, and manage payoff-statement requests, and furthermore enables the user to transmit the requests to a fax-based loan servicer and receive resultant reply payoff-statements from the loan servicer. The request is transmitted by email to an email-to-fax service, which then faxes the request to the loan servicer. The loan servicer then produces a payoff-statement and, as instructed by the request, faxes it to a fax number of a fax-to-email service. The fax-to-email service converts the fax to an email message including an image of the fax, and text from the fax, generated by OCR (Optical Character Recognition), and sends the email to the central controller. The controller then uses the OCR-generated text to determine the particular user to associate with the request, and then presents the payoff-statement to the user for viewing. A plurality of users is enabled to share payoff-statement information. Information is stored and made available to the user for later retrieval and analysis. A directory of loan servicers and their electronic addresses is accumulated for convenient lookup.
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Citations
33 Claims
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1. An apparatus for facilitating acquisition of prospective payoff information on an existing loan account, comprising:
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an input device;
an output device;
a storage device;
a processor connected to the input device, to the output device, and to the storage device storing a program for controlling the processor;
the processor being operative with the program toreceive information identifying a requester;
receive information identifying a loan servicer, including an electronic address;
receive information identifying a loan account;
build a payoff-statement request document based on the received information;
store information regarding the request document; and
output the request document. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A method for using a computer to facilitate acquisition of prospective payoff information on an existing loan account, comprising the steps of:
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inputting into the computer information identifying a requester;
inputting into the computer information identifying a loan servicer;
inputting into the computer information identifying a loan account;
building a payoff-statement request document for transmittance to the loan servicer;
storing a record regarding the payoff-statement request document;
outputting the payoff-statement request document; and
providing access to the record regarding the payoff-statement request document. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
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32. A method for associating a payoff-statement received from a loan servicer with a causative payoff-statement request, comprising:
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embedding a unique identifier into a surrogate field of a payoff-statement request as to make it likely that the unique identifier will become embedded in a resultant payoff-statement generated by a loan servicer in reply to the request; and
extracting the unique identifier from the reply payoff-statement after receiving the reply payoff-statement from the loan servicer. - View Dependent Claims (33)
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Specification