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| United States Patent | 5537314 |
| Link to this page | http://www.wikipatents.com/5537314.html |
| Inventor(s) | Kanter; Mark W. (Lyndhurst, NJ) |
| Abstract | A credit accumulation and accessing system for a plurality of sponsoring
companies and participants having at each sponsoring company location (14,
16), a common bus (26), which communicates with participant data input
(28), performance data input (34), computer processing (24), memory (30),
an award output device (36), and an input/output device (32). Input/output
device (32) may connect to a central control center (12), and/or a
plurality of second sponsoring companies (14, 16), and/or a plurality of
financial institutions (94), through communication lines (38). Sponsoring
company, participant, and performance data, along with award conversion
tables, pyramidal association tables, award applicable merchandise UPC
codes, financial-institution-issued lines of credit and computer
operational programming, are stored. Under control of the operational
program several tasks are accomplished accordingly, including, creating
subdirectories for a single participant account so as to selectively
associate the single account subdirectories with multiple sponsoring
company accounts and deciphering such accordingly at points of sale,
calculating, posting, and/or issuing discounts, raffle entries,
store-credit returns, points, cash values, bill values, in accordance with
performance of participants (72, 74), while sending results immediately
and/or periodically to appropriate destinations, which may include
computer memory and/or bank accounts and/or plastic cards on behalf of
participants, participant sponsors in a pyramidal-type structure,
sponsoring companies, sponsoring companies' sponsors in a pyramidal-type
structure, raffle sponsors, and redeemed at appropriate locations which
may include, sponsoring company, participant, beneficiary, or financial
institution bank accounts (52, 54, 82, 84, 94), sponsoring company
locations (14, 16), designated sponsoring company award output devices
(36), participants' households, beneficiaries' locations, and cash
dispensing machines, and received in the appropriate forms, which may
include, designated sponsoring company merchandise, wire transfer, check,
cash, coupon, certificate, charge card balance reductions, travel tour, or
catalog merchandise. |
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Title Information  |
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Drawing from US Patent 5537314 |
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Referral recognition system for an incentive award program |
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| Publication Date |
July 16, 1996 |
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| Filing Date |
February 23, 1995 |
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| Parent Case |
This is a file-wrapper-continuation of application Ser. No. 08/229,390,
filed Apr. 18, 1994, now abandoned. |
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Title Information |
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Description |
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BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of retail marketing
promotions, and in particular, to an exemplary credit accumulation and
accessing system.
2. Description of Prior Art
Traditional methods of advertising have called for merchants making
announcements through many media avenues. These avenues include
television, radio, newspapers, magazines, celebrity endorsements and other
similar endorsements. The announcements are often spoken as with radio, or
written, as with the printing of coupons in newspapers. These methods are
usually very expensive, very time consuming, and often have to be paid for
by merchants in advance of, and without any guarantee of future sales. Air
time and periodical space are often sold at a premium. Designing
advertisements, doing research to define the exact target audience, and
choosing where, when and how to place the advertisements are burdensome.
This is sometimes so complicated and so demanding that additional
employees or outside agencies are often hired to take care of such
details. Celebrity endorsements require the need for having the right
contacts or, if one does not have good contacts, hiring an expensive
agency that does. The management of coupon collection, verification,
shuffling, and redemption is nearly an administrative nightmare. Many
printed coupons, are collected by consumers, often in quantities of
hundreds or even thousands of small pieces of paper, and are often later
presented to merchants for redemption. The merchants collect the coupons
as they are presented, verify that the presented coupons are valid, honor
the discounts, and later sort the coupons. Sorting the coupons is a very
time consuming process and usually is performed at the end of the day so
as not to delay consumers. Coupons issued by manufacturers or other third
parties are compiled and then sent to their respective issuers, for
redemption. In this case, merchants have the disadvantage of having to
wait to receive full payment from the manufacturers or third-party-coupon
issuers, for the goods that were sold earlier at a discount. Reimbursement
can take weeks, even months, and such delays can have a detrimental effect
on a merchant's cash flow. The merchant often buys goods from the
manufacturer in advance, and has to sell them to recoup the investment and
make a profit. The longer the delays are, the longer the merchant's turn
around time on their investment is and the longer restocking ability is
delayed. Consumers on the other hand, become confused with collecting so
many coupons, that often times, they find that several coupons have been
left at home, some time during shopping or checkout. Furthermore, the use
of the coupon method creates massive paper waste. Many times, coupons are
printed and never redeemed. The ones that are redeemed are not always
recycled because of human disregard or inconvenience.
The collection and redemption portions of the coupon method mentioned
above, can be made simpler by the use of Humble's U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,256
issued Aug. 14, 1990. However, the use of this patent requires the
acquisition of costly, and substantially, space consuming, automated
equipment. Furthermore, the use of the patent does little to reduce the
paper waste inherent with the traditional coupon method.
Nearly all merchants' sale prices must increase dramatically to counter the
expenses incurred by the use of any of the above mentioned promotional
techniques. This causes the overall cost of living to increase, hurting
the entire economy.
Another promotional technique used by merchants is network marketing, also
known as Multi-Level Marketing, or MLM for short. With this method, to aid
the sale of merchants' products, merchants typically hire independent
contractors. These independent contractors are also hired to assist the
solicitation of other independent contractors, known as "recruits," who
aid in selling the merchants' products. Each independent contractor can
buy products from a merchant and use the products themselves or sell the
products to others. Each independent contractor can also recruit other
independent contractors who inherit the same opportunities as the person
recruiting them has. This means, the recruits can also purchase, use or
sell the merchants' products and recruit other independent contractors.
With MLM, an independent contractor earns money two ways, by selling to
others, at a markup, the products they bought from the merchant, or by
receiving a commission on their recruits' sales. When a sale is made by
the recruit of an independent contractor, the independent contractor
receives a commission. In this instance, the commission structure is
considered to have gone through one level of sponsorship. Commissions can
derive from more than one level of sponsorship, such as when the recruit
of an independent contractor's recruit makes a sale. According to the
structure, the independent contractor might earn a commission from that
sale, considered to have gone through two levels of sponsorship. The
industry has used various commission structures, some offering eight
levels of sponsorship or more. All of the recruits included in an
independent contractor's levels of sponsorship are regarded as the
independent contractor's "downline." The industry has used various methods
of determining an independent contractor's commission rate. This includes
totaling the sales generated by an independent contractor's downline, and
applying a commission rate based on that figure. Often, levels are set in
which this rate increases as the independent contractor's
downline-sales-volume increases.
Multi-Level Marketing previously has had many disadvantages. To adopt such
a marketing plan typically requires a merchant to have a broad
understanding of MLM. Since this information is not common knowledge,
merchants often must hire an individual who is familiar with MLM. These
individuals are few and far between, making it difficult for merchants to
find them. This allows these individuals to charge extremely high fees, so
much so that most small businesses can not afford their services. Those
merchants that can afford the service often find that once the MLM plans
are established for them, they are burdened with having to handle an
enormous amount of paperwork. This paperwork includes designing, and
printing enrollment forms, order forms, and catalogs, and then mailing
them to potential participants. This also includes receiving and
processing completed enrollment forms and order forms; and calculating,
printing and then mailing commission checks to independent contractors.
Merchants have been known to purchase computers to assist this process.
Merchants are also often limited to including in their catalog, only
easily shipped or stored products. This is because the independent
contractors must often pay for merchandise shipping charges and store the
merchandise on their own property until it is sold to others. Any product
that is too bulky, or heavy, would not be cost effective for independent
contractors to purchase. This is because the independent contractors would
have little room for storing bulky merchandise, or with the added expense
of shipping and possibly storage, there would be little, if any, room for
markup on its future sales.
The independent contractors are often limited to shopping through a catalog
in order to purchase the merchant's products. This has the disadvantage of
an independent contractor often having to pay for shipping charges of the
ordered goods. It also has the effect of causing the independent
contractor frustration, as shipping often carries several problems. With
shipping, the independent contractor has to wait for the merchandise to
arrive. This can take days, weeks, or in some cases, even months, as the
merchant may be out of stock of the selected merchandise. When the
merchandise finally arrives, the independent contractor is often
dissatisfied for one of several reasons. The merchandise might be damaged
from shipping. It might be the wrong merchandise, as orders are often
botched through improper communication. The merchandise might not be of
anticipated quality, such as a dress that does not fit properly. In the
likely event of this dissatisfaction, often the independent contractor
must go through the ordeal of repackaging and shipping the merchandise
back to the merchant. The merchant will then do one of several things. The
merchant might refund the independent contractors' money, which leaves the
independent contractor feeling as though the whole experience was a waste
of time. In the event the merchandise was damaged in shipping, the
merchant might ship the independent contractor replacement merchandise.
This would force the independent contractor to wait even longer for the
desired merchandise to arrive. The replacement merchandise could also
become damaged through shipment. If a merchant issues the independent
contractor a credit line equal to the amount of the original purchase
which was returned, the independent contractor, is often forced to buy
something else from the merchant's catalog. This poses several problems
for the independent contractor. The independent contractor might not be
interested in any other merchandise the merchant has to offer since the
catalogs are often limited in variety, in which case the independent
contractor must purchase something that is undesirable. The price of the
supplemental merchandise might not be the same as the purchase price of
the original merchandise. If the supplemental merchandise price is higher,
the independent contractor must spend more of his/her money than he/she
originally planned to spend. If the price of the supplemental merchandise
is less, the independent contractor will have money, which is not gaining
interest, tied up with the merchant for an extended period of time. In
other words, the independent contractor will have his/her money held by
the merchant until such time when it is used toward another purchase.
With MLM, independent contractors must often store merchandise on their
premises. Merchandise is usually bought in advance from a merchant by an
independent contractor, who, in turn, stores the merchandise and attempts
to sell the merchandise to others. Many independent contractors have not
had sales training, but participate in an MLM plan because they are
tempted by the high profit potential this sort of self-employment offers.
As a result of their lack of proper sales training, often times, much of
the merchandise they stocked up on, can not be sold to others. Rather, it
remains stored on the independent contractor's premises for an extended
period of time. Eventually, to become rid of the unwanted merchandise, the
independent contractor must often do one of a few undesirable things.
He/she must either give the merchandise away, sell it at a greatly reduced
price, use it themselves or throw it in the garbage. This has had the
unsavory result of depleting an independent contractor's cash flow. It has
also resulted in many independent contractors after a certain degree of
exposure to the program, often becoming jaded with MLM, subsequently
giving up self-employment with MLM forever, and discouraging others from
participating in any MLM plan also. Catalogs of merchant's products or
services have also been bought and given to, or sold to others by
independent contractors. This can alleviate the need for an independent
contractor to stock up on merchandise, but requires the independent
contractor to purchase the catalogs. Often times, a shopper does not want
to pay for a catalog, as they are not sure if there is anything in the
catalog that they even want to buy. Independent contractors, on the other
hand, do not want to give the catalogs out for free. When the independent
contractor gives the catalog out for free, the independent contractor does
not recoup the investment he/she made to acquire the catalog. This results
in an independent contractor's cash flow becoming depleted. If the shopper
does buy the catalog and then buys something from the catalog, the total
cost of what was spent to acquire the merchandise is greater than the list
price of the merchandise. Add on shipping costs that the purchaser must
pay and the total cost to acquire the merchandise rises substantially.
Usually, the resulting price is equal to, and often greater than, the
price of comparable merchandise found in a retail store or especially a
discount store. Shoppers become discouraged upon having to pay an often
higher than retail price for the merchandise from the catalog and being
subjected to the problems associated with shipping, as mentioned
previously. This leads most shoppers to avoid purchasing through these
catalogs. This in turn, results in minimal sales for the independent
contractor, who again, after a certain degree of exposure to the program,
often becomes jaded, gives up self-employment with MLM, and discourages
others from participating in any MLM plan also.
Another method used by merchants to assist sales of their goods or
services, has been the installation of incentive programs. Incentive
companies have been hired in the past to install such programs. The
incentive program usually entails a participant carrying a card or bearing
an identification number. This card or identification number is used to
keep track of a participant's transaction. With the program, participants
present their cards or identification numbers when making purchases. This
allows participants to accumulate credit in their respective accounts
based upon various purchasing goals established by the merchant. These
goals can vary, but are mainly designed to increase a participant's
spending with a merchant within certain time periods. Points have been
awarded to participants according to their performance under the program's
rules. The points are usually converted to dollar amounts according to a
formula. The dollars are then used to purchase merchandise shown in the
incentive companies catalog. The dollars could also be used to earn a paid
trip for the participants and perhaps a certain number of family members
to a vacation spot such as Hawaii or Florida. In some cases, at either the
culmination of the program or a set period within the program, the points
are converted to a direct cash payment. This payment is either handed to
the participant, wired to the participant's bank account or charge card,
or issued to the participant as a check, money order, certificate or
coupon. It has also been issued to a separate account on a participant's
charge card to be used only toward the purchase of a specific merchant's
goods or services.
Computer programming and data processing have often been used to assist
these incentive companies with managing the operations of the program.
This includes printing, issuing and mailing reports to participants that
show the credit issuing merchant's name on the statements. These
statements also show participants' earned credit to date and approaching
goals. This also has included printing and issuing to participants, charge
cards that advertise the merchant and/or lending institution that sponsors
the incentive program.
Incentive programs previously have had a number of drawbacks. There are
several types of programs that allow for the issuance of merchandise, some
of which also offer cash as awards. Originally there were only two methods
for issuing merchandise. With one kind, an incentive company had its own
warehousing facilities to store the merchandise. The incentive company
bought merchandise from manufactures or distributors, and stocked its
warehouses with the merchandise. The incentive company had catalogs
prepared which showed the merchandise stocked by the incentive company. If
a participant qualified for an award of merchandise, the participant was
limited to merchandise shown in the catalog. The items of merchandise that
could be ordered through the catalog depended on the amount of points
achieved by the participant. Hence, a participant who earned more points
under the incentive program could order more expensive merchandise, or
more items of merchandise, than one who had a lesser accumulation of
incentive points.
This warehousing had the disadvantage of tying up the incentive company's
money in the inventory stockpile. This money was not drawing interest and
was not being used while the inventory sat in the warehouse. Incentive
companies could easily overestimate the amount of total achievement of the
participants under the various incentive programs it was providing. In
this case, the amount of merchandise ordered was less than expected,
resulting in an overstocking of merchandise. This exacerbated the
inventory drain, since the merchandise sat in the warehouse for even a
longer time. In fact, because of such long duration of being stockpiled,
some of the merchandise had to be sold on the general market in order to
become rid of it.
If on the other hand the incentive company underestimated the total
performance of participants in its incentive programs, then it was often
understocked in the items of merchandise requested. This resulted in
delayed shipment and delivery of the requested merchandise, causing the
participant aggravation and dissatisfaction with the merchant and the
incentive company. Moreover, since these later purchases often were not in
bulk, or because prices increased, the cost to the incentive company
usually escalated above initial costs.
There was another problem with such warehousing. In order to continually
have merchandise readily available, the incentive companies often had to
stock many of the same items year after year. The participants became
bored with having the same old merchandise choices, or a selection with
little variety. Accordingly, participants had little motivation to achieve
an award in which they had little interest. Additionally, after the
participants acquired a certain number of the merchandise items through
prior programs, they had no use for more of the same when the merchandise
was again offered later. With such a warehousing system, the incentive
company was motivated to buy merchandise in bulk in order to get better
cost breaks. Furthermore, in order to better move any one item of
merchandise inventory better and to keep track of inventory more easily,
the incentive companies were encouraged to limit the number of items
available. This also lead to stocking the same old merchandise over long
periods, which resulted in participants having the same boring choices
over the years. This resulted in participants becoming jaded after a
certain degree of exposure to the incentive programs.
Other disadvantages were that the incentive company had to properly
maintain warehouse conditions, such as temperature and humidity, to
preserve the merchandise, as well as take precautions to prevent fire or
theft. Accommodations to receive the goods, stack or arrange them, as well
as record their location, their entry and departure were also needed. Some
incentive companies also found it desirable to maintain a number of
warehouses throughout the country for better distribution.
Moreover, the warehousing system had problems associated with shipping
merchandise by the incentive company to the participant. This included
merchandise being damaged in transit, not only causing frustration to the
participant, but necessitating the incentive company spending time and
effort to package and ship merchandise once again to the participant. The
system entailed the administrative procedures and additional cost of
insuring merchandise not only during warehousing, but during its shipment.
With the other kind of merchandise system, the incentive company did not
have its own warehouses. Rather it had contracts with suppliers or
distributors of products to meet the obligations to participants. With
this type of system, there were the aforesaid problems of goods damaged
during shipment which lead to participant aggravation.
Moreover, because the supplier or distributor was spaced from the
participant by an additional layer of communication, there often were
delays in shipment and mistakes caused by miscommunications. Shipment
delays resulted if the supplier or the distributor was understocked with
the requested merchandise. With the supplier or distributor shipping the
goods, there was a greater likelihood of there being a mistake in the
exact goods that were to be shipped. It was furthermore necessary for the
incentive company to maintain the additional relationship with the
suppliers in order to properly effect a satisfactory program. Maintaining
relationships, in this respect, was a disadvantage as compared to the
warehousing system. With either the warehousing or the supplier
merchandise system, the participants frequently paid higher prices than
the price for the same merchandise offered by a public retailer and
especially by a discount store. This had the unsavory result of the
participant believing the dollar values assigned for the purchase points
were inflated and illusory.
In some instances, the earned credits were spent by applying them toward
paid trips, which also had drawbacks. One problem is that there was
usually only one vacation spot to select from if the goal was met. In some
cases, participants in one geographical area, such as in the eastern half
of the US were awarded a trip to a spot in Florida, for example, while
those in the western half of the US were awarded a vacation to a different
place such as Hawaii. However, each participant was limited to choosing
only one vacation spot. If the participants had been to the same area
previously, in many instances they had little or no interest in returning
once again. They additionally may have had no interest in the vacation
spot for whatever reason, which might have included family limitations,
pure lack of interest, or medical problems. There were also the
inconveniences of travel arrangements and the psychological stress
associated with traveling from a familiar environment to an unfamiliar
one. These shortcomings all militated against motivating the participant
to achieve.
Furthermore, when a participant redeemed an award, the merchant was
responsible for reimbursing the incentive company for the cost of the
award. This had the disadvantage of decreasing the merchant's cash flow
and limited the amount of awards that the merchant could afford to issue.
Incentive plans have gone so far as to convert the points into dollars and
then issue cash payments to the participants. Once the cash was paid,
however, there was little to remind the participant of the merchant that
issued it. There was also the problem of a participant having to carry
cash on their person, often making the person more vulnerable to robbery
and subsequently very uncomfortable. In the event of a robbery the stolen
money was nearly impossible to trace and practically unrecoverable. Also
if the cash was lost or misplaced, practically anybody who found it could
claim it and the participant would have little recourse. Furthermore,
since cash is widely accepted throughout the world, there was the added
problem of the award often being spent outside the award issuing
merchant's normal line of goods or services. Not only did this decrease a
merchant's cash flow, but it did nothing to increase the sales of the
merchant's products which subsequently, had to be further stored. This
also resulted in allowing the merchant's competition to gain the award
recipient's business, as the recipient might have spent the cash award
wherever so desired.
Then there came another incentive program seen by Burton and Henke's joint
U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,372, issued Jun. 18, 1991. This allowed an incentive
company to use a system where consumers wishing to participate in the
program could apply for a charge card from a program sponsoring lending
institution. The charge cards when issued, would identify participants and
would accumulate cash values to their cards based on the participants'
performance under the incentive program. The awards could then be spent at
any location that accepted the particular charge card. Statements bearing
the names of the lending institution and the merchant who sponsored the
incentive program would be sent to participants. These statements would
show the participants the cash awards they have earned, how much they have
used, and how much is available for use.
Burton and Henke's program has the disadvantage of limiting consumer
participation to only those that are approved by the lending institution
to receive a charge card. If the applicants are not approved, they must
participate in the same manner and endure the same problems, as provided
by incentive programs prior to Burton and Henke's joint patent. Approval
of a charge card is a difficult feat for most individuals to accomplish.
Many times an individual's credit report is the victim of human error.
These reports are reviewed by lending institutions and any negative marks
that appear are often the basis for the institution's rejection of an
applicant's request for credit. The negative marks, if mistakenly applied,
are usually unknown by the applicant. Often, the applicant is only made
aware of the errors when he/she receives the lending institution's reason
for denial. The applicant must then try to remove the marks and reapply.
However, removing the marks is usually very difficult. Often times,
negative marks can only be removed by way of a retraction letter from the
business that reported the marks. Since the marks were mistakenly applied,
the applicant must prove his/her innocence, which is extremely difficult
as this goes against the US judicial system that states that an individual
is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Often times the applicant can
not remove the marks or gives up trying and is left with having increased
difficulty in receiving a credit line from any lending institution in the
future. Not only can negative marks appear by mistake, but many
individuals at some point in their lifetime are met with some sort of
financial crisis, such as the loss of a job. This often causes them to
fall behind on their credit obligations. This causes negative marks to
appear on the credit report and are next to impossible to have removed,
thus scaring the applicant's credit report for life. Furthermore a lending
institution often requires a credit applicant to have a certain amount of
annual income, previous payment history, and other stringent requirements
before being approved. Many individuals can not meet these requirements
and are subsequently denied a credit line. This causes frustration for
those that wish to participate in the program as designed but cannot
because they do not have the lending institution's approval. Those
individuals that are fortunate enough to be approved by the lending
institution, as mentioned before, earn cash awards to their charge cards
based on their performance. Since charge cards are accepted virtually
worldwide, there is little to secure that the award issued to the
recipient will be spent on the award issuing merchant's normal line of
goods or services. Worse yet, it could be spent on goods or services
provided by the merchant's competition. If the merchant's competition
doesn't accept the charge card, the participant often can make an extra
trip albeit risking accessing cash from a cash dispensing machine or other
similar device. Returning with the cash, the participant can then spend
the award with the merchant' s competition. With the award being spent
elsewhere, this again causes the merchants goods to remain unsold,
requiring further storage. And, as stated before, once the award is
issued, the merchant must reimburse the incentive company for the amount
of the award. The merchant must also pay the incentive company and/or the
lending institution a processing fee. This has the previously stated
disadvantage of decreasing the merchant's cash flow and limiting the
amount of awards the merchant could afford to issue. Furthermore, once the
award was issued, there was often little in the award itself that reminded
the recipient of the merchant who issued the award.
In addition, with Burton and Henke's joint patent, upon enrollment of a
merchant's incentive program, participants could set aside a certain
percentage of earned credits that are to be withheld. However, in order to
change this percentage figure, a participant was required to call or write
the incentive company that provided the program. This caused the
participant frustration as time, effort and money had to be spent whenever
a change in their withholding percentage was desired. This also
necessitated the incentive company having to acquire and assign personnel
to accept the call or letter from the participant, update the
participant's account and send notice to the participant of the completed
change.
Burton and Henke's joint patent also intended to appeal to lending
institutions as these institutions are often looking to issue more credit
cards to consumers. The idea was that participants of the program would be
more likely to use the sponsoring institution's charge card than some
other charge card they hold. This would hold true as participants would be
using the sponsoring institutions' cards to redeem whatever performance
credit had been stored there. Often times the performance credit available
on a participant's charge card would be less than the total bill of a
purchase, allowing the balance to be conveniently paid using the bank's
credit line. However, the appeal to lending institutions was dismal in
that, participants had to be approved by the banks in order to participate
in the program. Without the lending institution's sponsorship, there was
no new incentive program. The program relied on a lending institution's
sponsorship. Lending institutions were also faced with the disadvantage of
not being able to sponsor more than one merchant incentive program per
card issued to consumers. In other words, if a consumer wished to
participate in two different merchant's incentive programs, the consumer
would need two charge cards; one for each merchant. Similarly, each
additional merchant incentive program that a consumer wished to
participate in required the consumer to apply for, and subsequently carry,
an additional charge card. This would cause a lending institution to issue
another card, credit line and monthly statement to a consumer for each
merchant incentive program the consumer joins. Since the size of a
consumer's wallet is usually limited, the amount of cards that a consumer
can carry is limited. This means that a consumer, after joining several
merchant incentive programs and having no more room in their wallet for
additional cards, would be inclined to pass up other merchant incentive
program offers. Realizing this limitation and since lending institutions
usually extend only a limited amount of credit to any one individual,
lending institutions would be inclined to sponsor only a limited amount of
merchant incentive programs. This means that the amount of merchants that
could install such an incentive program would also be limited. Many
merchants cannot afford to be their own lending institutions. However,
banks can, and subsequently this incentive program has been repeatedly
used by banks to promote the use of their charge cards over other bank's
charge cards. Since banks could use the incentive program on their own,
they had little reason to assist other merchants in their incentive
program needs. This left nearly all non-lending institution type
merchant's without an improved incentive program to aid the sale of their
goods or services.
Another incentive plan available is shown by McCarthy's U.S. Pat. No.
5,202,826, issued Apr. 13, 1993. With this system, participants of the
incentive program accumulate cash rebates in a holding account at a
central center. The rebates are often based upon multiplying a merchant's
predesignated or keyed in discount rate by a participant's purchase
amount. Consumers | | |
