Patent ID: 7346575

Claim:
A method of assessing risk associated with a financial transaction, wherein a customer is attempting to pay for vendibles from a merchant via a promissory payment, the method comprising: (i) receiving transaction information from the merchant at a point of sale, wherein the transaction information identifies the customer, the merchant, and includes data about the financial transaction; (ii) assessing the risk of the financial transaction using at least one mathematically based scoring engine to obtain a risk value; (iii) determining if the risk value indicates that the risk is in a first classification of risk wherein additional information about the customer may result in the risk value being positioned within a second classification of risk for which acceptance of the promissory payment as payment for the vendibles is warranted; (iv) provisionally authorizing acceptance of the promissory payment if the determination in act (iii) indicates that the risk value is in the first classification; (v) communicating the provisional authorization to the merchant at the point of sale to thereby indicate to the merchant to accept the promissory payment but to hold delivery of the vendibles for a pre-selected period of time; (vi) obtaining additional financial data about the customer during the pre-selected period of time to determine if the risk value can be positioned within the second classification; and (vii) authorizing delivery of the vendibles after the pre-selected period of time when the additional financial data about the customer indicates that the risk value can be positioned in the second classification.