Importance

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Abstract

A versatile universal prepaid petroleum-related (e.g., gasoline and oil) and travel card system that features a pre-paid card that can be used at any major brand filling station. The card is encoded with data indicating its authenticity; and provision is made for optional encoding identifying it with a particular user, company, individual or event. The card is also usable for purchase of non petroleum-related products such as the sundries sold at many filling stations. The card, when purchased by a prospective user, can initially be pre-encoded with specific dollar amounts (e.g., $50.00, $100.00) or be blank and when purchased be encoded with an amount selected and paid for by the purchaser. Moreover, the purchaser may, at any time, increase the then-existing amount by paying for the desired amount of increase in cash. When a purchase is made using the card, a card-reader authenticates its authenticity and decrements the amount of pre-paid credit remaining on the card by the amount of the purchase. If the amount of the purchase exceeds that of the credit remaining on the card, provision is made for the purchaser to remit the balance in cash. To reflect use of the card to make a purchase, a data bank is accessed to correspondingly credit an account of the seller.

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First Claim