METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MATCHING PURCHASE TRANSACTION HISTORY TO REAL-TIME LOCATION INFORMATION

• US 20190043087A1
• Filed: 10/11/2018
• Published: 02/07/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Capital One Services LLC (Capital One Financial Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Capital One Services LLC (Capital One Financial Corporation)
• Inventors: Greenough, Joshua M., Geisser, Cameron M.
• Granted Patent: US 11,120,474 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3224 Transactions dependent on location of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0261 based on user location

Abstract

Embodiments are described for a system and method for providing a list of current offers from retailers to a user operating a mobile client device. Aspects of the method comprise analyzing a transaction history of the user to identify a vendor who has transacted with the user; determining a present geographic location of the user based on a location of the mobile client device; determining a location of the vendor proximate the user based on the transaction history and the present geographic location of the user; searching for a current promotion offered by the vendor; and facilitating the serving of the current promotion to the user through the mobile client device.

Claims

1. A method of providing a current promotion from a retailer to a user, the method comprising:

identifying, by at least one processor and based on a transaction history of the user, vendor data associated with a vendor who has transacted with the user;

identifying, by the at least one processor and based on the vendor data, the vendor who has transacted with the user;

determining, by the at least one processor, at least one location associated with the vendor;

determining, by the at least one processor, that the at least one location is within a proximity of a current location of a computing device associated with the user;

identifying, by the at least one processor, a current promotion offered by the vendor, the identifying comprising;

executing a web crawler process to search for promotions offered by vendors;

determining that at least one of the promotions found by the web crawler process matches the vendor to identify a possible promotion;

determining whether an address element associated with the vendor is a word-to-word match of an address element in at least one promotion; and

responsive to determining that the address element associated with the vendor is a word-to-word match of the address element in the at least one promotion, determining, based on a comparison of an additional vendor element associated with the vendor to an additional vendor element in the at least one promotion, a secondary match of the possible promotion offered by the vendor; and

generating, by the at least one processor, a current promotion offer comprising information related to the at least one promotion and information related to a previous transaction amount in the transaction history.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining the secondary match comprises determining a fuzzy match based on a comparison of an additional vendor element associated with the vendor to an additional vendor element in the current promotion.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the fuzzy match uses ngrams.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the current location of the computing device is indicated by location data from at least one of a geolocating component within the computing device and a wireless service provider function that locates the computing device relative to one or more physical sites maintained by the wireless service provider,

wherein searching for word-to-word matches and using a fuzzy search based on ngrams of a vendor element further comprises:

obtaining the current location of the computing device in latitude/longitude format;

obtaining the one or more locations of the vendor in street address format; and

converting the street address format to corresponding latitude/longitude format for direct comparison with the current location of the computing device.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the transaction history comprises one of a card-based payment history through a credit or debit card used by the user, and a mobile payment history using a near field communication (NFC) device.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the card-based payment history is maintained by a payments platform associated with a financial institution managing the credit or debit card.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying the vendor who has transacted with the user comprises:

performing a search, by the at least one processor, for the name of the vendor in the transaction history based on word matching;

excluding, by the at least one processor, known false positive matches resulting from the search;

generating, by the at least one processor, alias variations for the name of the vendor;

performing a second search, by the at least one processor, for the alias variations, the second search using word matching; and

excluding, by the at least one processor, false positive matches resulting from the second search.

8. The method of claim 1 further comprising generating display data for displaying a location indicator icon in conjunction with a list of current promotions to indicate a relative direction of the corresponding vendor to the user.

9. The method of claim 1 wherein the current promotion is embodied in at least one of an electronic coupon redeemable by the user at the vendor location within the proximity of the user, and an advertising message indicating a promotion available to the user by visiting the vendor location within the proximity of the user.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein information related to the transaction history includes at least one of a number of transactions with the vendor and a date associated with a previous transaction with the vendor.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the address element is at least one of a phone number, a vendor website, and a street address.

12. A non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method, the method comprising:

identifying, based on a transaction history of a user, vendor data associated with a vendor who has transacted with the user;

identifying, based on the vendor data, the vendor who has transacted with the user;

determining that at least one location associated with the vendor is within a proximity of a current location of a computing device associated with the user;

determining a nearest location of the at least one location that is closest to the current location of the user;

identifying a current promotion offered by the vendor at the closest location, the identifying comprising;

executing a web crawler process to search for promotions offered by vendors;

determining that at least one promotion found by the web crawler process matches the vendor;

determining whether an address element associated with the vendor is a word-to-word match of an address element in the at least one promotion; and

responsive to determining that the address element associated with the vendor is a word-to-word match of the address element in the at least one promotion, determining, based on a comparison of an additional vendor element associated with the vendor to an additional vendor element in the at least one promotion, a secondary match of the at least one promotion offered by the vendor; and

generating a current promotion offer comprising information related to the at least one promotion and information related to a previous transaction amount in the transaction history.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the determining the secondary match comprises determining a fuzzy match based on a comparison of an additional vendor element associated with the vendor to an additional vendor element in the at least one promotion.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein identifying the at least one promotion offered by the vendor comprises:

performing a search for the name of the vendor in the transaction history based on word matching;

excluding known false positive matches resulting from the search;

generating alias variations for the name of the vendor;

performing a second search for the alias variations, the second search using word matching; and

excluding false positive matches resulting from the second search.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12 wherein the current location of the computing device is indicated by location data received from at least one of a geolocating component within the computing device and a wireless service provider function that locates a user relative to one or more physical sites maintained by the wireless service provider,

wherein identifying the at least one promotion further comprises:

obtaining the current location of the computing device in latitude/longitude format;

obtaining the one or more locations of the vendor in street address format; and

converting the street address format to corresponding latitude/longitude format for direct comparison with the current location of the computing device.

16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein identifying the at least one promotion further comprises executing an application program interface program configured to search for offers from a matched vendor.

17. A system for providing current promotion from a retailer to a user operating a mobile device, the system comprising:

a web crawler configured to search for promotions from vendors;

a database configured to store one or more current promotions offered by one or more vendors; and

a matching server comprising a processor and computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the matching server to perform a method, the method comprising;

identifying a vendor who has transacted with the user by;

identifying, based on a first search of a transaction history of the user, one or more vendor names associated with one or more vendors who have transacted with the user;

excluding known false positive names from the one or more vendor names;

generating alias variations for at least some of the one or more vendor names;

identifying, based on a second search of the transaction history using one or more alias variations, one or more vendor aliases corresponding to one or more vendors who have transacted with the user; and

excluding known false positive aliases from the one or more vendor aliases;

receiving, from the mobile device, a current device location of the mobile device;

determining at least one vendor location associated with the vendor;

determining that the at least one vendor location is within a proximity of the current device location;

identifying a current promotion offered by the vendor, the identifying comprising;

executing the web crawler to identify one or more promotions from one or more vendors;

determining that at least one promotion found by the web crawler process matches the vendor;

determining whether an address element associated with the vendor is a word-to-word match of an address element in the at least one promotion; and

responsive to determining that the address element associated with the vendor is a word-to-word match of the address element in the at least one promotion, determining a secondary match of the current promotion offered by the vendor;

generating a current promotion offer comprising information related to the at least one promotion and information related to a previous transaction amount in the transaction history; and

transmitting the current promotion offer to the mobile device associated with the user.

18. The system of claim 17 wherein the transaction history comprises a card-based payment history through a credit or debit card used by the user.

19. The system of claim 18 wherein the card-based payment history is maintained by a payments platform in conjunction with a financial institution managing the credit or debit card.