Personally customizable credit card accounts
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Account holders may specify vendor-specific charge restrictions for charging transactions against their accounts, where each vendor-specific charge restriction includes a unique identifier for the corresponding vendor to which the charge restriction is applicable. The charge restriction may be an exclusion from approval of all charge authorization requests, an amount limit on charge authorization requests which may be approved, a “rebill” limit on the number of times subsequent charge authorization requests may be approved, or a combination of such restrictions and/or other restrictions. When a charge authorization request is received for a charge against an account having vendor-specific charge restrictions set by the account holder, the vendor identifier is extracted from the charge authorization request and employed to determine whether any charge restrictions are applicable to the requesting vendor. The vendor-specific charge restrictions for a particular vendor may be specified by the account holder either before or after an initial charge transactions involving that vendor, with the vendor identifier either manually entered by the account holder or automatically extracted from an account transaction record.
17 Citations
45 Claims
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1-33. -33. (canceled)
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34. A method for managing charging transactions, comprising:
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enabling, within a data processing system, a designation, by an owner of a chargeable account number and in association with the chargeable account number, of at least one specified allowed vendor within an allowed vendors listing and a corresponding amount limit chargeable by the specified allowed vendor; and
determining whether the allowed vendors listing specifies that a charge authorization request from all vendors not identified within the allowed vendors listing are to be declined;
determining whether a charging vendor for a current charging transaction is identified on the allowed vendors listing;
if the charging vendor is not on the allowed vendors listing, declining the current charging transaction;
if the charging vendor is on the allowed vendors listing, determining, by the data processing system, whether the current charging transaction for a specified amount by the charging vendor to the chargeable account number is within the designation. - View Dependent Claims (35, 36, 37)
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38. A system for managing charging transactions, comprising:
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means for enabling, within a data processing system, a designation, by an owner of a chargeable account number and in association with the chargeable account number, of at least one specified allowed vendor within an allowed vendors listing and a corresponding amount limit chargeable by the specified allowed vendor; and
means for determining whether the allowed vendors listing specifies that a charge authorization request from all vendors not identified within the allowed vendors listing are to be declined;
means for determining whether a charging vendor for a current charging transaction is identified on the allowed vendors listing;
means for if the charging vendor is not on the allowed vendors listing, declining the current charging transaction;
means for if the charging vendor is on the allowed vendors listing, determining, by the data processing system, whether the current charging transaction for a specified amount by the charging vendor to the chargeable account number is within the designation. - View Dependent Claims (39, 40, 41)
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42. A computer program product within a computer usable medium for managing charging transactions, comprising:
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instructions for enabling, within a data processing system, a designation, by an owner of a chargeable account number and in association with the chargeable account number, of at least one specified allowed vendor and a corresponding amount limit chargeable by the specified allowed vendor within an allowed vendors listing; and
instructions for determining whether the allowed vendors listing specifies that a charge authorization request from all vendors not identified within the allowed vendors listing are to be declined;
instructions for determining whether a charging vendor for a current charging transaction is identified on the allowed vendors listing;
instructions for if the charging vendor is not on the allowed vendors listing, declining the current charging transaction;
instructions for if the charging vendor is on the allowed vendors listing, determining, by the data processing system, whether the current charging transaction for a specified amount by the charging vendor to the chargeable account number is within the designation. - View Dependent Claims (43, 44, 45)
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Specification