Importance

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Abstract

A wireless phone or other wireless device is utilized to authorize debit transactions from a bank or financial institution in a secure manner in which a one-time meaningless transaction number is displayed to the user at the point of purchase terminal, which the user enters into his wireless phone or other wireless device to authorize the transaction. In one embodiment, the individual uses the device to call the mobile commerce server, and is identified by means of a Wireless Application Protocol ID, or equivalent. The user then enters a PIN number to authorize the transaction. The individual may also select from the wireless device the particular bank from which the debit is to come. In one embodiment, the mobile phone user then goes to the cash register and tells the clerk that this is a mobile commerce transaction. The transaction amount and the identity of the store is transmitted to the mobile commerce server, and the mobile commerce server transmits back to the register a one-time only transaction number which is displayed to the individual or automatically transmitted to the user's wireless device. The individual views the transaction number at the register and enters this number via the keypad into the wireless device if it has not already been automatically transmitted. The transaction number along with the PIN number or personal ID number and selected bank is then transmitted to the mobile commerce server, which authorizes and completes the sale, the fact of which is then transmitted back to the register. In so doing, casual observers will, if anything, obtain the transitory transaction number, which is meaningless. Moreover, any apparatus at the register, which would normally be utilized to transact the business, even if tampered with, would have no effect on the subject system since the apparatus, which initiates this transaction, is the wireless device, which is in the possession of the user as opposed to unscrupulous store employee or other miscreant.

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First Claim