Patent ID: 7571142

Claim:
In a financial transaction system capable of using at least one limited use credit card number, which is associated with a master account number of a customer and deactivated upon a use-triggered condition which occurs subsequent to assignment of the at least one limited use credit card number, a method of processing a transaction initiated by a customer presenting the limited use credit card number to a merchant, the method comprising the steps of: receiving in a central processing system said limited use credit card number electronically routed from the merchant; determining electronically whether said limited use credit card number has been deactivated because at least one use-triggered condition has been satisfied; electronically transmitting a signal to a facility which issued the limited use credit card number, the signal including original transaction details but with the limited use credit card number remapped to be a master account number if the limited use credit card number has not been deactivated; electronically determining whether authorization can be obtained against the master account number; electronically remapping the results of the authorization determining step to the limited use credit card number for transmission to the merchant; and electronically transmitting a signal to the merchant with the results of the authorization determining step for the limited use credit card number.