Patent ID: 8655772

Claim:
A method of qualifying a participant over a global network with available funds using a qualifying system, the method comprising: (a) enabling the participant to establish an account, the account to be administered by the qualifying system; (b) enabling the participant to access the qualifying system and identify an amount of funds to be reserved on behalf of a vendor; (c) the qualifying system reserving a portion of the funds deposited in the account according to the amount of funds identified by the participant, the reserving step being practiced without the participant providing the funds or any instrument of the funds to the vendor and without transferring the funds or any instrument of the funds from the account, wherein an available balance in the account consists of an amount of unreserved funds from the funds deposited in the account; and (d) the qualifying system qualifying the participant if the unreserved funds in the account exceed the amount of funds identified by the participant.