WO2003077164A1

WO2003077164A1 - Anonymous gifting

Info

Publication number: WO2003077164A1
Application number: PCT/AU2003/000233
Authority: WO
Inventors: Stephen Mulcahy
Original assignee: Rsvp Personals International Limited
Priority date: 2002-03-13
Filing date: 2003-02-27
Publication date: 2003-09-18
Also published as: AUPS111502A0

Abstract

Methods, apparatus and software are disclosed for facilitating an anonymous gifting transaction between a donor and a recipient. In preferred embodiments the donor and recipient are members of the same dating or introduction service and the gift is selected on-line. The donor and recipient remain anonymous to each other, but for nick names which are already known to them. The purchase of the gift is conditional on at least one factor such as valid delivery address, acceptance by the recipient, fraud indicating factors or geographic factors which might affect delivery.

Description

ANONYMOUS GIFTING

TECHNICAL FIELD

The invention pertains to methods of doing business and more particularly to a method for enabling a gift to be sent anonymously, particularly between members of an introduction, dating or social club or any sort. The invention also includes the hardware and software to carry out the methods in an Internet environment.

BACKGROUND ART

On-line, Internet based dating and introduction services (herein "dating services" or "services") are popular and growing in popularity. Members of such dating services are able to exchange information with other members in a number of ways. In many instances the identities of the members are protected to provide anonymity and therefore privacy and security until such time as the corresponding members elect to reveal their identities to each other. Until such time as an identity is revealed a member uses an alias, user name or nickname. Such an on-line service (or its financial beneficiaries) may wish to raise revenue and provide services to members by enabling or mediating the giving of gifts between members. However there exists a risk that a member may refuse a gift from another member or be unreachable so that that there is no possibility of sending the gift (particularly a physical and deliverable gift) to the intended member. This leads to the need to return the gift and/or refund the monies paid by the donor. These measures add to the cost and complexity of the transaction and therefore erode the revenues of the service. OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the invention to provide methods, software and apparatus for a form of anonymous gifting having the attributes of a conditional purchase of the gift. In preferred embodiments, a donor member of a service, being a potential sender selects a gift offered by the service through for example a www site for purchase. The donor provides payment authority or allows an authorisation number to be obtained from the payment provider. In preferred embodiments, the donor does not provide actual payment. The dating service then notifies the recipient member of the nature of the gift and the alias of the donor member. The notice invites the recipient to accept or decline the gift. The actual purchase by the donor is not made final unless the service receives notification from the recipient of acceptance and a valid delivery address.

In preferred embodiments, the postal address of the recipient is never provided to the donor. If no response or a negative response is made by the recipient, the donor is informed. If the service receives an acceptance from the recipient, the donor is advised, the purchase is made in accordance with the authority and delivery of the gift is made or attempted.

In particularly preferred embodiments, the gift is depicted in a www page controlled by the service and payment authority includes the credit card or other payment method details of the donor, which authority and details are provided through a www interface. The notice to the recipient is made by email and or a www page and the acceptance or decline by the recipient is made by email and or a www page. Advice of purchase or decline to the donor is also made by email and or a www page. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURES

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a sample gift selection www page. Figure 2 is a flow chart illustrating steps pertaining to the methods of the present invention.

BEST MODE AND OTHER EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

In the following description, the term "document" is intended to be interpreted broadly as a www page or SMS or GPRS message other networked distribution of a resource which may be viewed or otherwise accessed by a user. The term recipient will be understood as applying to a potential recipient. Database records or entries refer broadly to information contained in an electronic database. It will be understood that the delivery of information by email includes web based email, other personalised or password access web based messaging and for example, text or mark-up language messaging over telephone and wireless networks.

On-line dating, social and introduction services (including social groups or clubs) are well known. Such services allow members (for example) to search for compatible members, exchange information such as messages, email or live chat data, send or view photos and obtain information about events associated with or sponsored by the service. Often, particularly in a dating or introduction service, member's first contact with one another is anonymous. Members will continue to interact anonymously until one or both members agree otherwise.

A service or social group or the owners or operators or financial beneficiaries (taken together and henceforth "operators") may wish to enhance services to members and raise revenues by facilitating gift giving between members. Gifts may be offered and sold directly by the service or through an intermediary, strategic partner or other distributor of gift items. In a preferred embodiment, the gift items are displayed for sale on a www page controlled by the service. This same page or pages contain the means to allow a donor member to purchase the gifts, from whatever source, conditional upon acceptance by a recipient member. As illustrated in Figures 1 and 2, the donor may access 21 one or more www pages 10 (Figure 1) depicting images 11 or descriptions 1 la of sendable gifts. Gifts may be organised into categories 12. Access to these www pages is by one of two methods 22. Members have profile pages which are accessible on line. The first is clicking on a 'send a gift' button on an individual potential recipient member profile www page 23. The second is clicking on a 'send a gift' option on the sender or donor member's home or profile page 23. A profile page is a web page which contains information about a member. These buttons will preferably appear on all member profile pages. Clickthrough from here leads to the 'Choose a gift' page 10, 24 will populate the 'recipient' field 13 on that page with a drop-down box 14 containing the names of all the sender's favourites or potential recipients. Selection may be made from an interactive selection tick box 15. Price, optionally inclusive of delivery cost maybe displayed 16 adjacent to each gift image 11.

The anonymous gifting service may, in some embodiments, be limited to recipient users having location profiles within certain geographic areas. In this case, the 'send a gift' button will appear only on pre-selected user profile pages, given a particular donor, following decision based on business rules regarding geographic service areas by the dating and others such as gift partners, vendors, delivery service providers etc.

There may be two-tier pricing, with, for example a 'metro area' delivery- inclusive price and an 'other area' delivery-inclusive price. Which price to display will be determined by reference to the geographic area of the recipient's profile, once again following the business rules referred to above. After a gift is selected 23 by the donor, the donor supplies an authority to the service together with e.g. credit card details 25 (which are provided to a participating bank) or, for example, details from which an account owned by the donor can be debited. This may be an account held by the donor with the dating service or a bank or any other payment provider. As a consequence of the attempt to send a gift, donor information is captured by the operator's database 23. The donor also identifies to the service the alias or nickname of the recipient. The information thus provided to the operator's database is sufficient to complete the purchase transaction. However the actual purchase is not made until certain conditions are met. For example, if the transaction is declined by the bank 26, the failed transaction and reasons are entered into the dating service's computer system or its database 27. The donor is notified, by email or on screen 28 of the failure 28.

On receipt of the donor's authority and payment details, the service (having logged the transaction 30 and received an authorisation number or approval from the bank or payment provider 29 initiates a notice message, preferably an email message to the intended recipient member 31. The alias but not the true identity of the donor is revealed. The nature or exact type of gift may also be revealed in the notice. The notice also invites the recipient to accept 32 or decline 33 and to provide a postal delivery address. The address is not provided to the donor and the recipient is informed of this. Accepting or declining may be done by reply email or through a www interface 34 where an image of the gift maybe viewed. The email notice 35 (generated automatically from database entries, by software) to the donor may read as follows. The use <> style brackets indicates a database field name whose descriptive name appears in the brackets. Hello <Sender Name>

Your request to send a gift has been accepted by our system.

We are contacting <recipientName> to confirm that he/she is willing to accept this gift. We have received authorization for a payment of<price> on your credit card, but will not process this payment until <recipientName> confirms willingness to accept the gift. We will let you know by email when your gift is accepted, or if there are any problems with delivery.

<Recipient Name> will also receive a free stamp with your gift, so he/she can thank you personally. Thank you for using RSVP 's anonymous gifting service!

The intended recipient will receive an automatically generated invitation to accept as for example, an email message 31 of the following type. Note the use of embedded links, for example to donor information and preference indication.

Hello <Recipient Name>

<SenderName> would like to send you a gift through RSVP 's anonymous gift delivery service. If you do not know <SenderName>, you can check out his / her profile <here>. If you want to receive this gift, please <click here to accept the giff>. If you don 't want to receive this gift, please <click here to refuse acceptance of this gifi>-

If the gift is accepted by clicking on the link in the email text, the recipient is directed to a www page 34 containing a form, such a secure form. The information from the form is compared to the dating system's record or database records 55. If the acceptance is the recipient's first, the delivery address details are recorded in the service's databases. The delivery address or other details maybe compared to other member records or user profile records for the purpose of detecting illegitimate or objectionable conduct by a recipient. Illegitimate or objectionable conduct by a recipient includes the use of multiple profiles having a common address and the population of profiles with false information. Upon a second or subsequent acceptance of a gift, the recipient supplied delivery address is compared to the delivery address stored by the service to the user's data and other member information in storage. Manual intervention 56 may be required if there is a lack of correspondence with the user's profile or stored details or if nefarious activity is suspected or detected.

Matching the recipient's reply from the form, with the stored user information, may involve updating the recipient's profile if required 57 for example, to update legitimate changes to a user's data. Manual intervention may require an operator's customer service officer to contact either or both parties to the intended transaction without revealing the true identity of the other party. Success at this stage may result in an email notice 58 to the donor that delivery is being attempted. The form 34 filled in by the intended recipient is of the following type:

Please fill out the form with your address details for gift delivery. Your address details will not be given to <Sender Name>, or to any other parties. They will be stored by RSVP and will be used only for the delivery of this and any future gifts through the RSVP Anonymous Gift Service. Name : Address: Preferred delivery days (MTWTFSS) Preferred delivery times (morning, afternoon, evening) Contact phone no in case of difficulty delivering Mobile or Home or Work If there is no reply to the donor's invitation in a set period of time 36, or if the email bounces back from the intended recipient 37 or if the gift is declined 33, the donor is notified 38, 39, 40 and no purchase transaction is made. The transaction is logged by the dating service 41, 42, 43. In some embodiments no charge is made to the donor.

If the gift is accepted 32, then the purchase and debit are made 45 in accordance with the authority provided by the donor and delivery is attempted in accordance with the address provided by the recipient. It is understood that the conditional purchase, notice and invitation to recipient, acceptance or declining and delivery of goods may be handled by a separate fulfilment company associated with, owned by or under contract to the service to which the members belong.

If the example where an intended recipient declines the gift offer, 33 an email 38 is sent to the intended sender as follows:

Hello <SenderName>

On <date> you requested to send a gift (<description ofgift>) to <recipientName>. Unfortunately we are unable to deliver the gift as you requested because <Recipient Name> is not willing to accept a gift from you at this time. We have not processed any payments on your credit card in relation to this matter.

If the intended recipient can not be contacted 36, 37, the donor receives an email message of the following type: Hello <SenderName>

On <date> you requested to send a gift (<description ofgift>) to <recipientName> .

Unfortunately we are unable to deliver the gift as you requested because we have not been able to contact <Recipient Name to confirm acceptance of your gift and provide delivery details.

We have not processed any payments on your credit card in relation to this matter.

If the intended recipient's delivery details are not valid or incorrect 46, the donor receives an email of the following type:

Hello <SenderName>

On <date> you requested to send a gift (<description ofgift>) to <recipientName>. Unfortunately we are unable to deliver the gift as you requested because the delivery details <recipient Name> gave us are incorrect. We have tried to get updated details with no success.

We have refunded <price> on your credit card as we were unable to deliver your gift.

Orders may be processed by sending an email 47 (or electronic file of standard format) to the relevant gift provider 48, of the following type:

Delivery Order No 12345

Product ID ABC101

Product 12 red roses

Cost (Inc delivery) $59.95 Name Mrs. ABC

Dating Service User Name Happy Girl

Address 6/234 The Flower Gardens Preferred delivery days M, W, S, Sun

Preferred delivery times Evening (6.30 to 9.30)

Contact phone no in case of difficulty delivering 0411 345 678

CUT BELOW THIS LINE TO PROVIDE THE MESSAGE TO THE RECIPIENT

Dear <recipientName>.

Message

The delivery entity may, upon successful delivery 51 input the following delivery information to the dating service system 60, either via a secure webpage on the www site or via electronic file upload 50. In one embodiment, the dating service database is updated and the gift recipient maybe credited 65 in a manner which permits the donor to be suitably acknowledged by the recipient. An email message noting successful delivery 66 is sent to the donor. The successful delivery notice to the dating service via a secure webpage on the www site or via electronic file upload 50 may be in the following form:

Delivery Order ID

Delivery status (delivered)

Delivery date

Delivery time Signed for by Comments If there is a delivery failure 52, the delivery entity will input following information to the dating service system, either via a secure webpage on the www site or via electronic file upload 53:

Delivery order ID

Delivery status (failed)

Date and time of delivery attempt 1 Date and time of delivery attempt 2 Date and time of delivery attempt 3 Comments / Reason for failure:

Deliver failure (or credit card refusal from the bank 62) causes an updating 61 to the database records of the dating service. In either event the donor is notified by email 63. The dating service computer system should generate reports to alert a customer services officer if any particular member has received, for example, more than 4 gifts in a month. This is to prevent fraudsters from putting fake photos of themselves on the www site and inviting other members to send them gifts. Also the system should be able to recall a record of any delivery in the event that there is a dispute between members or involving a provider of gifts or delivery services.

Various modifications may be made in details of design and construction without departing from the scope and ambit of the invention.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A business method usable by an operator of a service, for facilitating the sending of an anonymous gift, from a donor member to a recipient member, comprising the steps of: providing a document over a network from which a potential donor member selects a gift offered by the service to a recipient that is a member; providing a facility for the donor to provide payment authority but not necessarily final actual payment; upon obtaining the authority, notifying the recipient member of the nature of the gift and the alias of the donor, but not a donor's true identity, and inviting the recipient to accept or decline the gift; using the authority to make a purchase on behalf of the donor if the invitation is accepted.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein: a postal address of the recipient is not provided to the donor, but if no response or a negative response is made by the recipient, the donor is informed.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein: if the service receives an acceptance from the recipient, the donor is advised, the purchase is made in accordance with the authority and delivery of the gift is made or attempted to an address provided by the recipient at the time of acceptance.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein: the gift is depicted in a www page controlled by the service and payment authority includes the credit card details of the donor, which authority and details are provided through a www interface to a participating bank.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein: the notice to the recipient is made by automatic email generated using an operator's database and the acceptance or not, by the recipient, is made by email; advice of purchase or decline to the donor also being made by email.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein: the donor and the recipient each have a publishable profile page on an operator's web site or other networked resource and the purchase is made from a link provided by the operator on the recipient's or the donor's profile page.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein: the donor and the recipient each have a publishable profile page on an operator's web site or other networked resource and the purchase is made from a link provided by the operator on the recipient's profile page.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein: the gifts are provided by an intermediary, upon receipt of an order placed by the operator, from a request made by the donor.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein: the recipient provides, at the time of acceptance of the invitation, delivery details comprising at least a delivery address and that address is compared to an address or partial address stored by the operator as part of a recipient profile.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein: the purchase is made conditional upon one or more of the following conditions: having stored in the operator's database a suitable delivery address for a recipient, the request for purchase not exceeding a pre-established threshold for a number of gifts a recipient may obtain in a certain period of time; the actual delivery address corresponding to a stored delivery address for a recipient; or acceptance of the gift being made by the recipient within a certain period of time.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein: a limit is established to the number of gifts a recipient may receive in a pre-established period of time and an authority to make a purchase is not exercised if that limit is met or exceeded.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein: a discrepancy between a stored address and an address given by a recipient upon acceptance of the invitation results in a manual intervention by the operator.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein: a price for a gift is displayed on a page published to the donor and the displayed price reflects the location of both the donor and the recipient.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein: a recipient's delivery address is considered in determining the delivery price, gift price or wether or not to accept the donor's request to purchase.

15. Software for implementing on a networked server, any one of the methods of any of claims 1-14.

16. The software of claim 15, wherein: email notices are generated automatically from donor and recipient information stored by the operator.

17. The software of claim 15, wherein: the refusal of a transaction with a bank or recipient, when occurring during a networked transaction, causes the operator's database to be updated without human intervention.

18. A computer, being a networked server, when running the software of any one of claims 15-17.

19. The method of claim 1, wherein: authority to make a purchase is not exercised by the service if objectionable or illegitimate conduct is detected on the part of the intended recipient.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein: the purchase is made from a link provided by the operator on a gift purchasing page which is not the donor's or the recipient's.