Patent ID: 8452673

Claim:
A method for keeping an inventory of vehicles that serve as collateral for loans provided by a lending entity, the method comprising: storing vehicle information in a database in association with lending entity identifiers, wherein the vehicle information includes vehicle identification numbers (VINs) that uniquely identify particular vehicles for which the lending entities have entity has provided financing, and wherein the lending entity identifiers uniquely identify identifies the lending entities entity that provided the loans for the vehicles; storing unique identification numbers (UINs) in the database in association with the lending entity identifier for each lending entity, wherein the unique identification numbers uniquely identify particular vehicle monitoring devices assigned to each of the lending entities entity; connecting a first vehicle monitoring device to an on-board diagnostics connector in a vehicle, the first vehicle monitoring device having a first UIN that uniquely identifies the first vehicle monitoring device; the first vehicle monitoring device accessing vehicle data through the on-board diagnostics connector, which vehicle data indicate at least the a first VIN of the vehicle in which the first vehicle monitoring device is connected; the first vehicle monitoring device determining vehicle location data indicative of a location of the vehicle; the first vehicle monitoring device wirelessly transmitting at least the first VIN of the vehicle, the vehicle location data, and the first UIN of the vehicle monitoring device to a communication network; receiving the first VIN of the vehicle, the vehicle location data, and the first UIN of the vehicle monitoring device at a central vehicle data server that is connected to the communication network and is in communication with the database; determining whether the first VIN and the first UIN transmitted from the vehicle monitoring device are both associated with one and the same lending entity identifier in the database; and (i) upon determining that the first VIN and the first UIN transmitted from the vehicle monitoring device are not both associated with one and the same lending entity identifier in the database, sending an exception message to the one or both of a lending entity whose lending entity identifier is associated with the first UIN transmitted from the vehicle monitoring device or to the and a lending entity whose lending entity identifier is associated with the first VIN transmitted from the vehicle monitoring device.