US 2019/0164148 A1 · SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING A VIRTUAL GIFT CARD EXCHANGE BANK

Abstract

A virtual gift card bank buys gift cards discounted from their face value. These gift cards are bought from secondary gift card vendors or from individuals looking for cash or an exchange. A large bank of gift cards is compiled, consisting of cards purchased by the bank and cards uploaded by various sellers. Then consumers are offered use of these gift cards at prices less than the face value but with profit added to the transaction. When possible the bank combines multiple little gift cards into one big one. A consumer only needs his smart phone to utilize any gift card in the database to purchase goods at a discount, sell unwanted gift cards, and deposit his monies into his bank accounts. Subsystems include inquiries into retailer systems to ascertain gift card values, performance of anti-fraud services to retailers, and on the fly valuation of optimal buy and sell prices.

Claims15

Dependent claims

An internet based secondary market financial system comprising:

a gift card bank that buys and sells gift cards individually and in bulk;
said gift card bank having interfaces with a plurality of gift card issuer;
said gift card bank having an inquiry subroutine to the plurality of gift card issuers to gather permission or denial to group multiple gift cards from a single gift card issuers into a new single gift card;
said gift card bank compiling an inventory of gift cards of both an open and a closed loop type;
said gift card bank having a computing subroutine to compute a resale price of each gift card in its inventory that is higher than a purchase price of the gift card and lower than a face value of the gift card;
a consumer mobile application that has a communication link to a merchant sales system;
said consumer mobile application having a communication link to the gift card bank to purchase an item from the merchant sales system using a gift card purchase from the gift card bank inventory.

4 more elements

A secondary gift card market exchange system comprising:

a central bank exchange database which stores and processes:
1. purchased gift card files or information,
2. uploaded gift card for sale information, by sellers;
a gift card purchasing subsystem that interactively buys gift cards either individually or in bulk at a price less than the face value of the gift card;
a pricing subsystem that establishes a resale price of a gift card in the database of acquired gift cards;
a gift card merger subsystem which creates a temporary single large pseudo-gift-card from multiple small cards to pay for a merchandise costlier than the usual face value of GC;
a gift card sales subsystem that sells or exchanges a gift card with a consumer;
an interactive user interface that coordinates all transactions with a consumer's smart phone application or other viable computing devices;
said consumer smart phone application having a direct interface to the consumer's selected bank accounts, credit card accounts, or other payment accounts;
a retailer inquiry subsystem that ascertain a gift card value as well as its authenticity;
and
a gift card expiration subsystem that adjusts a purchase and a sales price based on an anticipated zero value date approaching.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

System and method for providing a virtual gift card exchange bank

Life of this patent

System and method for providing a virtual gift card exchange bank

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims15