US 8,606,696 B1Granted

Assessing consumer purchase behavior in making a financial contract authorization decision

AssigneeSimplexity, LLC

InventorPaul Halpern

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Abstract

A method includes: receiving a request corresponding to a prospective customer for at least one of a new service contract and sale of a product, the request including purchaser data specific to the purchaser, and new transaction data; determining historic data for a plurality of past transactions based at least in part on the purchaser data and one or more characteristics of the at least one of the new service contract and sale of the new product, the historic data for each past transaction including respective purchaser data, respective transaction data, and respective outcome data; determining historic risk data related to the plurality of past transactions; determining a risk prediction of the request based at least in part upon the historic risk data; and determining an authorization decision based at least in part upon the risk prediction, wherein the authorization decision comprises an approval or a denial of the request.

Claims30

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

receiving, via a network from a remote computing device, a request corresponding to a prospective customer for (a) a new service contract and (b) product, wherein
the request comprises customer data specific to the prospective customer and new transaction data,
completion of a new transaction, including the new transaction data, that would be initially unprofitable to a seller, and
the new transaction is anticipated to result in periodic payments to the seller for at least an initial period of time, wherein the periodic payments relate to the service contract;
determining historic data for a plurality of past transactions based at least in part on both demographic information derived from the customer data, and
one or more characteristics of at least one of the new service contract and the product, wherein
the plurality of past transactions are associated with a plurality of individuals different than the prospective customer, and
the historic data for each past transaction of the plurality of past transactions comprises
respective purchaser data,
respective transaction data related to an initial purchase made by a purchaser identified by the purchase data, wherein the initial purchase is determined to be similar to the one or more characteristics, and
respective outcome data comprising at least one of
default data regarding a state of completion or default of an associated periodic payment contract, and
return data regarding return of at least a portion of the initial purchase;
determining, by a microprocessor of a computing device, historic risk data related to the plurality of past transactions, wherein the historic risk data reflects an assessment of the outcome data of the plurality of past transactions;
determining, by the microprocessor, a risk prediction of the request, wherein the risk prediction is based at least in part upon the historic risk data;
determining, by the microprocessor, an authorization decision based at least in part upon the risk prediction, wherein the authorization decision comprises an approval or a denial of the request;
and
providing, to the remote computing device responsive to the request, an indication of the authorization decision.

15 more elements

A method comprising:

collecting, by a microprocessor of a computing device, transaction data for a plurality of past transactions involving purchase of a service contract and subsidized equipment, wherein completion of the purchase was initially unprofitable to a seller, and the purchase resulted in periodic payments to the seller for at least an initial period of time, and wherein the periodic payments relate to the service contract;
collecting, by the microprocessor, return data regarding return of at least a portion of the initial purchase for one or more transactions of the plurality of past transactions;
correlating, by the microprocessor, respective return data with respective transaction data;
collecting, by the microprocessor, periodic payment data for each transaction of at least a portion of past transactions of the plurality of past transactions, wherein the periodic payment data comprises historic data of periodic payments related to the service contract made by the purchaser of each of the portion of past transaction of the plurality of past transactions;
correlating, by the microprocessor, respective payment data with respective transaction data;
accessing, by the microprocessor, information regarding a prospective transaction involving a customer different than a plurality of purchasers associated with the plurality of past transactions, a new service contract, and new subsidized equipment;
matching, by the microprocessor, the prospective transaction with one or more transactions of the plurality of past transactions based at least in part on one or more similarities between respective transaction data related to the respective past transaction and transaction data of the prospective transaction, wherein the one or more similarities include at least two of a) one or more characteristics of the new service contract, b) one or more characteristics of the new subsidized equipment, and c) one or more characteristics of the customer;
analyzing, by the microprocessor, the return data associated with the one or more transactions and the periodic payment data associated with the one or more transactions to determine a risk prediction related to the prospective transaction;
determining, by the microprocessor, an authorization decision based at least in part upon the risk prediction, wherein the authorization decision comprises one of an approval or a denial of the request;
receiving, by the microprocessor, a confirmation that the prospective transaction was completed;
and
adding, by the microprocessor, transaction data for the completed transaction to the plurality of past transactions.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.