Patent ID: 7035813

Claim:
A method of registering warranties on products using phone cards, the method comprising the steps of: packaging a phone card with a separate product wherein the phone card includes a phone card code; obtaining a financial card number with a point of sale system for the purchase of the product; obtaining the phone card code from the phone card with the point of sale system upon purchase of the product; transmitting the financial card number, a charge authorization request for the financial card number, and the phone card code from the point of sale system to a code processing system; transmitting the financial card number and the charge authorization request from the code processing system to a financial network; receiving an authorization response in the code processing system from the financial network and processing the phone card code to determine product information and manufacturing information for the product if the authorization response indicates that the charge to the financial card number was allowed; transmitting a warranty activation request and the product information from the code processing system to a manufacturer warranty activation system based on the manufacturer information to activate a warranty on the product; and transmitting the phone card code and a phone card activation request from the code processing system to a phone card activation system to activate the phone card.