Patent ID: 7455226

Claim:
A method of authorizing a requested merchandise return at a merchant's point of return, comprising: collecting information from multiple merchants about merchandise returns being returned by consumers; obtaining consumer identification information about the consumers making the merchandise returns to the multiple merchants; storing the consumer identification information in association with the merchandise returns in one or more databases, wherein the database further comprises information about return history of prior merchandise returns made by the consumers to the multiple merchants; receiving a request to authorize a return made by a consumer at a merchant's point of return located in a merchant's facility; providing the information in the database to a return authorization system that is configured to determine whether to authorize the return made by the consumer at the merchant's point of return based at least in part on automatically using the consumer identification information, without the need of merchant intervention, to determine whether the consumer made prior merchandise returns to other merchants; and further determining with the return authorization system the acceptability of future merchandise returns by the consumer based at least in part on the information about the return history of the prior merchandise returns made by the consumer; and indicating to the consumer whether future merchandise returns will be allowed.