Method and apparatus for generating personal identification numbers for use in consumer transactions

Apparatus for generating a certificate providing valuable credit or services to a customer of a retail store, the apparatus comprising:

• an in-store computer to detect the occurrence of an event that has been preselected to trigger the generation of a certificate of value for distribution to a customer;
• a certificate generator for generating a certificate in response to the detection of a triggering event;
• and
• an authorization code generator, for generating a unique authorization code at the same time that the certificate is generated;
• wherein the authorization code is included in the generated certificate, for use by the customer in deriving something of value from the certificate, which becomes self-validating on generation, but has no value until the authorization code is verified, and whereby there is no requirement to keep an inventory of either certificates or authorization codes prior to their distribution.

A method for generation of a token evidencing prepayment for a service, for distribution to a consumer in a retail store, the method comprising the steps of:

• detecting the occurrence of an event that has been preselected to trigger generation of a token of prepayment for distribution to a consumer;
• and
• generating the token of prepayment token in response to the foregoing detecting step, wherein the step of generating the token of prepayment includes generating a unique authorization code for inclusion as part of the token;
• wherein the token is self-validating and has no existence or value prior to its generation, and no value prior to verification of the authorization code when the token is used, and whereby there is no need to maintain an inventory of tokens or authorization codes.