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Customized payment transaction notification

The present application is a non-provisional application of and claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/871,898, filed on Dec. 26, 2006, the entire contents of which are herein incorporated by reference for all purposes.

There are many occasions where a consumer may want to be notified when his credit card or the like is used. For example, he may want to know when his credit card account number has been used to purchase a large screen television for $5000 on the Internet, when the account number is used outside the U.S. to purchase airplane tickets, or when his child uses the account number or credit card to purchase alcohol.

A consumer may be notified by the issuer that issued his credit card when the issuer determines a potentially fraudulent activity has occurred in a purchase with the consumer's credit card. The issuer may contact the consumer using the contact information it has on file for the consumer, which is typically a consumer's home phone and address. For example, the issuer may call the consumer at his home phone number or send a letter to his home address informing the consumer that potentially fraudulent or unauthorized activity is taking place. However, the consumer may not be at home or may not answer the phone and a letter may take a few days to arrive at the consumer's home. Further, the activity may occur in the early hours of the morning outside of the issuer's business hours and when the consumer does not want to receive a call. For example, if a potentially fraudulent purchase is made with the consumer's credit card at 2 a.m. in the morning, the consumer may be asleep. Thus, conventional notification methods may not be very effective for notifying the consumer of potentially fraudulent or unauthorized credit card activity.

Embodiments of the invention address these and other problems individually and collectively.

Embodiments of the invention are directed to improved consumer notification systems and methods.

One embodiment of the invention is directed to a method comprising receiving information that a transaction associated with a portable consumer device is occurring, and providing an alert to a consumer associated with the portable consumer device, wherein the alert indicates that the transaction is occurring, wherein the alert is sent to the consumer according to a time or communication mode previously specified by the consumer using an interface that allows the user to specify the time and communication mode for receiving the alert.

Another embodiment of the invention is directed to a client computer comprising a processor, and a computer readable medium, wherein the computer readable medium comprises instructions for executing a method comprising receiving information on how to be notified if a predetermined activity is occurring with respect to a portable consumer device, wherein an alert is provided in manner consistent with the information provided if the predetermined activity is occurring wherein the information provided is a result of a consumer's choice to customize an alert for each predetermined activity by using an interface that allows a user to customize the alert according to at least communication mode and time, and sending the information to a notification server.

Another embodiment of the invention is directed to a method comprising providing information on how to be notified if a predetermined activity is occurring with respect to a portable consumer device, and receiving an alert in manner consistent with the information provided if the predetermined activity is occurring wherein the information provided is a result of the consumer's choice to customize an alert for each predetermined activity by communication mode and time.

Another embodiment of the invention is directed to a phone comprising a processor, and a computer readable medium coupled to the processor, wherein the computer readable medium comprises code for receiving an alert, wherein the alert indicates that the transaction is occurring, wherein the alert is sent to the consumer according to a time or communication mode previously specified by the consumer using an interface that allows the consumer to specify the time and communication mode for receiving the alert.

Other embodiments of the invention are directed to computer readable media comprising code for performing the above-described methods as well as systems, apparatuses and devices that perform the methods and/or that use the computer readable media.

These and other embodiments of the invention are described in further detail below.

FIG. 1(a) shows a block diagram of a payment processing system according to an embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 1(b) shows a block diagram of an exemplary portable consumer device.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a system according to an embodiment of the invention.