Card registry systems and methods

• US 8,127,986 B1
• Filed: 12/12/2008
• Issued: 03/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Consumerinfo.com Incorporated (Experian plc)
• Original Assignee: Consumerinfo.com Incorporated (Experian plc)
• Inventors: Balducci, Michael R., Miranda, Arlene E., Taylor, Ty, Gelgand, Laura
• Primary Examiner(s): Hess, Daniel
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tardif, David
• Application Number:
  US12/334,278
• Time in Patent Office: 1,180 Days
• Field of Search: 235/380
• US Class Current: 235/380
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/24 Credit schemes, i.e. "pay after"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/26 Debit schemes, e.g. "pay now"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/354 Card activation or deactivation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/407 Cancellation of a transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof

Abstract

A card registry system is configured to automatically identify financial card information in one or more credit files associated with a consumer and populate a card registry account of the consumer with the identified financial card information. Once the financial card information has been obtained from the credit file(s), the card registry system may transmit cancellation and/or reissuance requests to the respective card issuers in the instance that one or more cards are compromised, so that the financial cards may be easily and efficiently cancelled and/or reissued at the request of the consumer.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing personal information of a consumer, the personal information comprising one or more of a first name, a surname, a date of birth, a current residence address, including a current city, a current state, and a current zip code, a previous residence address, including a previous city, a previous state, and a previous zip code, and a Social Security number of the consumer;

storing the personal information of the consumer in one or more storage devices;

enrolling the consumer in a credit monitoring service;

receiving information from the consumer indicating that the consumer desires to be enrolled in a card registry service;

periodically monitoring credit information of the consumer by;

transmitting to one or more credit bureaus a request for credit information of the consumer;

receiving credit information regarding the consumer from the one or more credit bureaus, wherein the information includes information regarding one or more credit cards issued to the consumer;

determining if the credit information has changed since credit information regarding the consumer was previously received;

notifying the consumer of changes in the credit information;

identifying, by a computer system, first information in the credit information associated with a first credit card and second information in the credit information associated with a second credit card, wherein the first information comprises at least a first account number and a first issuer associated with the first credit card and the second information comprises at least a second account number and a second issuer associated with the second credit card;

storing the first information and the second information;

transmitting to a computing device of the consumer a user interface indicating at least some of the first information and the second information;

receiving selections from the consumer via the user interface indicating one or more of the first credit card and the second credit card that the consumer would like to cancel;

receiving selections from the consumer via the user interface indicating one or more of the first credit card and the second credit card that the consumer would like to have reissued, wherein the user interface allows selection of certain credit cards for cancellation and reissuance and the user interface allows selection of certain other credit cards for cancellation without reissuance;

in response to the consumer selecting the first credit card for cancellation, accessing the stored information for the first credit card and transmitting a first cancellation request including the first account number to the first issuer;

in response to the consumer selecting the second credit card for cancellation, accessing the stored information for the second credit card and transmitting a second cancellation request including the second account number to the second issuer;

in response to the consumer not selecting the first credit card for reissuance, not transmitting a first reissuance request to the first issuer;

in response to the consumer selecting the second credit card for reissuance, transmitting a second reissuance request to the second issuer; and

in response to receiving information from the first issuer or the second issuer regarding cancellation or reissuance of the first credit card or the second credit card, transmitting a notification to the computing device of the consumer indicating a status of the corresponding requests transmitted to the first issuer or the second issuer.

2. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the credit information comprises a credit report of the consumer.

3. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the personal information of the consumer is accessed from a data store comprising data regarding members of a credit monitoring service.

4. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the first information comprises a telephone number associated with the first issuer and transmitting the first cancellation request to the first issuer is performed by a human that calls the telephone number associated with the first issuer.

5. The computerized method of claim 1, wherein the first information comprises one or more of a file transfer protocol address, an internet protocol address, and an email address associated with the first issuer.

6. A computer system for identifying financial cards associated with a consumer and initiating cancelation of selected financial cards, the system comprising:

an account detection module configured to access a credit file of a consumer and to identify a first financial card information in the credit file associated with a first financial card of the consumer and a second financial card information in the credit file associated with a second financial card of the consumer, wherein the first financial card information comprises at least a first financial card account number and a first financial card issuer and the second financial card information comprises at least a second financial card account number and a second financial card issuer;

an account monitoring module configured to periodically access an updated credit file of the consumer to identify modifications to the first financial card information or the second financial card information; and

an account cancellation module configured to

receive instructions from the consumer indicating a request to cancel and reissue the first financial card and instructions from the consumer to cancel and not reissue the second financial card,

initiate cancellation of the first and second financial cards using the identified first and second financial card account numbers and the identified first and second financial card issuers and

initiate reissuance of the first financial card.

7. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the account cancellation module is configured to transmit an electronic communication to the first financial card issuer with cancellation instructions that are sufficient to initiate cancellation of the first financial card by the first financial card issuer.

8. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the account cancellation module is configured to transmit an electronic communication to the first financial card issuer with reissuance instructions that are sufficient to initiate reissuance of the first financial card by the first financial card issuer.

9. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the account detection module is configured to generate a user interface for display to a human account representative, the user interface including the first and second financial card information, wherein the user interface is usable by the human account representative to initiate cancellation of one or more of the first and second financial cards.

10. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the account cancellation module is configured to access a financial issuer data store and identify contact information regarding the first financial issuer from the financial issuer data store.

11. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the account detection module is configured to generate a user interface for display to the consumer, wherein the computer system transmits the user interface to a consumer computing device via one or more electronic communication networks.

12. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the financial cards each include a credit card, a debit card, a retail store loyalty card, or an automated teller machine card.

13. A computerized method comprising:

identifying one or more credit cards indicated in a credit file of the consumer;

storing data regarding each of the identified one or more credit cards;

receiving an indication from the consumer of a first one of more of the credit cards that the user would like to cancel and reissue;

receiving an indication from the consumer of a second one or more of the credit cards that the user would like to cancel and not reissue;

transmitting cancellation requests to respective issuers of the first one or more credit cards and issuers of the second one or more credit cards, wherein the cancellation requests include information regarding respective credit cards that are identified in the credit file of the consumer; and

transmitting reissue requests to respective issuers of the first one or more credit cards, wherein the reissue requests include information regarding respective credit cards that are identified in the credit file of the consumer.

14. The computerized method of claim 13, wherein the identifying comprises scanning at least a portion of the credit file to identify data in a format that is analogous to a format of a credit card number.

15. The computerized method of claim 13, further comprising:

generating a user interface including the data regarding at least some of the identified credit cards.

16. The computerized method of claim 15, wherein the user interface is accessible to the consumer via one or more network connections between a computing device that executes the computerized method and a computing device of the consumer.

17. The computerized method of claim 13, wherein the cancellation requests are transmitted to respective FTP addresses, IP addresses, or email addresses of issuers.

18. The computerized method of claim 13, further comprising:

transmitting a user interface indicating a status of the cancellation requests to a computing device of the consumer.