Method and system for notifying customers of transaction opportunities

• US 20070174448A1
• Filed: 04/03/2006
• Published: 07/26/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Citicorp Credit Services Incorporated (Citigroup Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Citicorp Development Center Incorporated (Citigroup Incorporated)
• Inventors: Tompkins, Peter, Tata, Anand, Markarian, Grigor, Vaidyanathan, Ramadurai, Ahuja, Arun, Pan, Joe
• Granted Patent: US 8,032,453 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/00 Payment architectures, schemes or protocols apparatus for performing or posting payment transactions G07F7/08, G07F19/00; electronic cash registers G07G1/12
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/382 insuring higher security of transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/403 Solvency checks
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A standalone notification system, including a notification server which generates electronic messages for alerting customers of potentially fraudulent activity on one or more of their financial accounts. Alternatively, or in addition thereto, the notification system may be used to forward transaction code(s) to customers for verification of a request for high risk transaction(s) with respect to a customer'"'"'s financial account. The transaction code is generated in response to a high risk transaction request and sent to through an identified customer notification means, e.g., e-mail, short message service (“SMS”), facsimile, mobile phone, telephone, etc. The customer must enter the transaction code within a predetermined amount of time in order to verify the high-risk transaction request.

Claims

1. An at least partially computer-implemented method for notifying a customer of potentially fraudulent event related to at least one financial account of the customer:

receiving account activity information for the at least one financial account into a notification system hosted by a financial institution holding the at least one financial account of the customer;

determining that the account activity information is indicative of potential fraud on the at least one financial account;

determining the status of the customer as being either enrolled in the notification system or not enrolled in the notification system;

if it is determined that the customer is enrolled in the notification system, ascertaining the customer'"'"'s preferred method of notification, formulating an alert message identifying the account activity information that is indicative of potential fraud and sending the alert message to the customer via the preferred method of notification; and

if it is determined that the customer is not enrolled in the notification system, determining at least one method of notifying the customer based on customer data received at the notification system, formulating an alert message identifying the account activity information that is indicative of potential fraud and sending the alert message to the customer via the at least one identified method of notification.

2. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein account activity information indicative of potential fraud includes:

attempted execution of high value transactions;

execution of high value transactions;

attempted addition of a new payee;

addition of a new payee;

attempted use of a previously unused transaction system;

use of a previously unused transaction system.

3. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the at least one method of notifying the customer is selected from the group consisting of e-mail, HTML (hypertext mark-up language), pager, customer service representative call, mobile phone text messaging, and XML (extensible mark-up language), facsimile, and short message service.

4. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein attributes of the high value transaction vary depending on historical account data of the customer.

5. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the customer data received at the notification system is received from both financial institution sources and external sources.

6. An at least partially computer-implemented method for confirming customer request for transaction comprising:

receiving a high-risk transaction request associated with a customer;

forwarding a transaction code to the customer via a notification method; and

requesting entrance of the transaction code within a predetermined period of time in order to verify that the high-risk transaction request was made by the customer.

7. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 6, further comprising:

determining the status of the customer as being either enrolled in a notification system or not enrolled in a notification system;

if it is determined that the customer is enrolled in the notification system, ascertaining the customer'"'"'s preferred method of notification, formulating an alert message including the transaction code and sending the alert message to the customer via the preferred method of notification; and

if it is determined that the customer is not enrolled in the notification system, determining at least one method of notifying the customer, formulating an alert message including the transaction code and sending the alert message to the customer via the at least one identified method of notification.

8. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 6, further comprising:

determining the at least one method of notifying the customer based on customer data received at the notification system or based on information requested at the time of the high risk transaction request.

9. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein a high risk transaction request includes a request to withdraw, transfer, or remit payment from a customer account in an amount in excess of a predetermined amount.

10. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein a high-risk transaction request includes a request to add a payee to a customer account.

11. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the at least one method of notifying the customer is selected from the group consisting of e-mail, HTML (hypertext mark-up language), pager, customer service representative call, mobile phone text messaging, and XML (extensible mark-up language), facsimile, and short message service.

12. The at least partially computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein the predetermined period of time is 10 minutes.