Pre-payment for goods and/or services at a point of sale

• US 20070267482A1
• Filed: 05/16/2006
• Published: 11/22/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 05/16/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Zellner, Samuel, Ruckart, John
• Application Number:
  US11/434,696
• Publication Number:
  US 20070267482A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 235/380
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/28 Pre-payment schemes, e.g. "pay before"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/387 Payment using discounts or coupons relating to marketing G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 13/025 wherein the volume is determined during delivery
• CPC Class Codes: G07G 1/0036 Checkout procedures

Abstract

Consumers are given the option at the point of sale to make a pre-payment for units of goods and/or services for which the consumer will take possession of at some point in the future. Consumers are given the option at the point of sale to complete a current purchase by utilizing the prepayment for a number of units of goods and/or services that the consumer has previously completed. The prepayment is tracked in terms of the number of units of goods and/or services that have been purchased. The prepayment may be tracked in conjunction with a transactional account such as a credit card account and the consumer may utilize the account such as by swiping a credit card and an option is then provided to either utilize the cash availability of the account to make a purchase based on current pricing or utilize the pre-paid units to make the purchase without regard to current pricing.

Claims

1. A system for providing pre-paid purchases at a point of sale, comprising:

a memory that stores a current pre-pay price per unit of goods and/or services to be purchased in the future;

a communication system that queries whether a consumer wishes to pre-pay for a future purchase of a given number of units of the goods and/or services at the current pre-pay price and that receives a response to the query,; and

a database that maintains an account for the consumer by associating an account identifier to the number of units of the goods and/or services for which the consumer has pre-paid.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a payment system that receives a form of payment from the consumer.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the form of payment is via a cash tracked transactional account that has the account identifier and wherein the database tracks the cash transactions of the transactional account along with the number of units for which the consumer has pre-paid.

4. The system of claim 3, further comprising a verification system for verifying that the cash tracked transactional account is being used by an authorized account holder.

5. The system of claim 3, further comprising a statement for the cash tracked account, wherein the statement specifies the cash tracked transactions in terms of monetary units and specifies the pre-paid transactions in terms of units of goods and/or services.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein upon the consumer making a purchase of the goods and/or services, the communication system queries whether the consumer wishes to use a cash tracked transaction or apply the number of units for which the consumer has pre-paid to complete the purchase.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a pricing system that determines the current pre-pay price per unit of goods and/or services based on a secured futures price.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the consumer is making a purchase and wherein the pricing system determines the current pre-pay price based upon the current purchase amount.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the goods and/or services have price volatility.

10. A computer readable medium containing instructions for providing prepaid sales of units of goods and/or services, wherein execution of the instructions performs acts comprising:

presenting an offer to a customer via an output device to pre-pay for a number of units of goods and/or services;

receiving via an input device a number of units of goods and/or services for which to pre-pay;

receiving payment from the customer for a price of the number of units of goods and/or services for which to pre-pay; and

storing the number of units of goods and/or services that have been pre-paid in a memory device in association with an identifier for the customer.

11. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein upon the customer presenting the identifier and attempting to purchase at least one unit of the goods and/or services, the acts further comprise:

presenting an option to the customer to apply a corresponding number of units of goods and/or services that have been pre-paid to pay for the number of units of goods and/or services that are being purchased; and

upon receiving a selection by the customer to apply the number of units of goods and/or services that have been pre-paid, then applying the corresponding number of units of goods and/or services that have been pre-paid to pay for the purchase and reducing the number of units of goods and/or services stored in memory by the corresponding number of units.

12. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the customer presents a form of payment when pre-paying that is a cash tracked transactional account that has the account identifier and wherein the acts further comprise tracking the cash transactions of the transactional account along with the number of units for which the consumer has pre-paid.

13. The computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the acts further comprise generating a statement for the cash tracked account, wherein the statement specifies the cash tracked transactions in terms of monetary units and specifies the pre-paid transactions in terms of units of goods and/or services.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the acts further comprise determining a current pre-pay price per unit of goods and/or services based on a secured futures price.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the consumer is making a purchase of goods and/or services when the offer is presented, and wherein the acts further comprise determining the current pre-pay price based upon a current purchase amount for the goods and/or services.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 10, wherein the goods and/or services have a price volatility.

17. A method of providing for pre-payment of units of goods and/or services, comprising:

detecting that the consumer is making a purchase of at least one unit of the goods and/or services after having pre-paid for at least one unit of the goods and/or services;

in response to detecting that the consumer is making the purchase after having pre-paid, presenting an offer to apply the units that have been pre-paid to pay for the purchase; and

reducing the number of units of goods and/or services being tracked as needed to pay for the purchase in response to the consumer opting to apply the units that have been pre-paid.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein in advance of detecting that the consumer is making a purchase of at least one unit of goods and/or services after having pre-paid for at least one unit of the goods and/or services, the method further comprising:

determining a current pre-paid price per unit of goods and/or services;

detecting that a consumer is making a purchase of at least one unit of the goods and/or services;

in response to detecting that the consumer is make the purchase, presenting an offer to the consumer to pre-pay for additional units of goods and/or services;

receiving a selection to pre-pay for a specified number of units of the goods and/or services;

tracking the number of units of goods and/or services purchased by the consumer;

19. The method of claim 18, wherein tracking the number of units of goods and/or services comprises maintaining the number of units of goods and/or services in relation to a cash transaction account identifier and in conjunction with a set of cash transactions where the cash transaction account has been used for payment.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the cash transaction account is a credit card account and wherein the cash transaction account identifier is a credit card account number and wherein detecting that the consumer is making the purchase of at least one unit after having pre-paid comprises receiving the credit card account as a form of payment and detecting that a number of units of the goods and/or services have been pre-paid for the credit card account that has been received.