Patent ID: 7693798

Claim:
A method for providing a secure and anonymous transaction between a user and a merchant with subsequent delivery of a purchased item, comprising the steps of: (1) establishing a user account between a money source and the user which is associated with a fictitious user identifier, a user account number, and a user settlement mechanism through which the user and the money source can settle payment card transactions involving the user account; (2) providing the user with a card number generator; (3) completing a payment card transaction between the user and the merchant in which the user account is charged a monetary value for the purchased item, comprising the following steps: (a) allowing the user to select a customization parameter associated with an anonymous delivery option for subsequent delivery of the purchased item to customize the payment card transaction by at least one of the following steps: (i) customizing generation of a user one-time payment card Number; (ii) customizing the fictitious user identifier; or (iii) inclusion of a customization variable in a user transaction data packet that includes the user one-time payment card number and the fictitious user identifier; (b) generating the user one-time payment card number through use of the card number generator; and (c) providing the merchant with the user transaction data packet; (4) submitting a merchant transaction data packet to the money source, wherein the merchant transaction data packet includes the user transaction data packet, the monetary value, a merchant identifier and a purchased item identifier; (5) providing the merchant with a confirmation that the transaction is valid after the money source verifies that the user one-time payment card number is valid for the fictitious user identifier and the transaction; (6) sending a tracking identifier from the money source to the merchant (7) sending the tracking identifier and a delivery address from the money source to a delivery agent; (8) invoking the settlement mechanism to charge or debit the user account for a transaction amount correlated to the monetary value; (9) delivering the purchased item to the delivery agent with the tracking identifier; and (10) delivering the purchased item from the delivery agent to the delivery address.