Patent ID: 7383988

Claim:
A system for locking and unlocking a financial account accessed by a card, comprising: a card processor implemented in a computer system, coupled to a delivery channel, and adapted to (a) receive card in information via the delivery channel, a request to perform a lock operation via the delivery channel to prevent the card from being used to access the account, and a request to perform an unlock operation via the delivery channel to allow the card to be used to access the account; (b) authenticate the card identifying information; (c) in response to a request to perform a lock operation to (i) verify that the card to have its use locked currently has an operable; status wherein it may be used to access the account; (ii) save the operable status of the card; (iii) lock the use of the card by changing the current status of the card to a locked status whereby use of the card to access the account is prevented; (d) in response to a request to perform an unlock operation to (iv) verify that the card to have its use unlocked currently has a locked status wherein it may not used to access the account; (v) retrieve the saved operable status of the card; (vi) unlock the use of the card by changing the current status of the card to the retrieved saved operable status of the card whereby use of the card to access the account is allowed; and (e) send a response message via the delivery channel indicating that the request to perform a lock operation or the request to perform an unlock operation has been received.