Cellular radiotelephone credit card paystation method
First Claim
1. A method of operating a cellular radiotelephone as a mobile pay phone, said method comprising the steps of:
- locally determining whether to enable operation of said radiotelephone;
enabling operation of said radiotelephone in response to said locally determining step;
monitoring usage of said radiotelephone;
detecting when said usage of said radiotelephone reaches a predetermined usage criteria; and
consulting, in response to said detecting step, a remote service to determine whether to continue enabled operation of said radiotelephone.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system (10) for operating a multiplicity of credit card reader-equipped cellular mobile radiotelephones (CMRs 12) as credit card paystations is disclosed. The CMRs (12) incorporate a remotely programmable unit (RPU 48) which controls credit card operation (1400, 1700) and which controls data communication sessions (188, 1900, 2100) with a credit card (CC) host (26) and a remote programming (RP) host (24). The RPU (48) resides between a conventional control unit (CU 42) and a conventional transmit/receive unit (TRU 62) of a conventional CMR. The RPU (48) monitors messages (1200, 1300) transmitted from the CU (42) and from the TRU (62). The CMR (12) powers up in a locked state (1402), within which a credit card (88) may be read. The credit card is locally validated (1421) at CMR 12. If the validation is successful, the CMR (12) is unlocked so that a call may be placed. Credit card information, called number, call time, call duration, and system identification number (SID) are recorded (1700) in a call record for each call established through the CMR (12). Call records are accumulated within the CMR (12). After each call, accumulated CMR (12) usage is checked (1730) against fraud alert thresholds. When a threshold is exceeded, an external credit card validation is performed (1744). Upon a daily schedule which activates during off-peak hours, the CMR (12) calls the CC host (26) to upload (1830) the accumulated call records.
210 Citations
22 Claims
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1. A method of operating a cellular radiotelephone as a mobile pay phone, said method comprising the steps of:
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locally determining whether to enable operation of said radiotelephone; enabling operation of said radiotelephone in response to said locally determining step; monitoring usage of said radiotelephone; detecting when said usage of said radiotelephone reaches a predetermined usage criteria; and consulting, in response to said detecting step, a remote service to determine whether to continue enabled operation of said radiotelephone. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A method of operating a remotely programmable cellular telephone as a credit card paystation, said method comprising the steps of:
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disabling operation of said telephone in response to telephone energization; reading credit card information from a credit card; performing a local validation of said credit card by processing said credit card information; enabling operation of said telephone if said local validation step successfully validates said credit card; recording usage of said telephone; comparing said recorded usage of said telephone with a predetermined fraud alert usage threshold; when said predetermined fraud alert usage threshold is exceeded, automatically establishing a data communications session with a credit card authorization system to remotely validate said credit card; and if said credit card authorization system invalidates said credit card, disabling operation of said telephone. - View Dependent Claims (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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Specification