Importance

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Abstract

Credit card blanks are manufactured with a plurality of random, secure codes (24) such as randomly applied infrared readable bits. A card encoding apparatus (B) includes a secure code reader (32) for reading the secure code from one of the blanks. The secure code and account information are operated on by an encoding algorithm (36, 38) to generate a verification code which is electromagnetically recorded (40) or embossed (42) on the card. In conjunction with a credit card transaction, the merchant passes the credit card past an electromagnetic read head (50) and an infrared read head (52) to read the electronically encoded account information, verification code, and secure code. A keyboard (54) enables the merchant to manually enter this data if the electromagnetic recording should be unreadable. The verification apparatus operates on the account information with a verification algorithm (66, 68, 70) to generate an answer corresponding to the verification code. If the answer and verification code match, an authentication code generator (82) generates an authentication code which is displayed on an LCD dot matrix display (56) and handwritten by the merchant on the receipt.

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First Claim