Referral system and method

摘要

A system comprising a referral acceptor; a referral coordinator coupled to the referral acceptor; a referral calculator coupled to the referral calculator; and an input/output (I/O) device coupled to the referral coordinator. The referral acceptor is configured to accept a referral card. The referral card has a referrer identifier which identifiers a referrer of a holder of the referral card.

主权项

1. A system comprising:
a referral program comprising a referral account controlled by an issuing entity on behalf of a merchant having machine-readable account information stored therein identifying account information for at least said merchant, a first referring entity authorized by said issuing entity to initially assign said referral account, a second referring entity authorized by said first referring entity to obtain valuable benefits from said issuing entity in a manner predetermined by the issuing entity in exchange for taking action predetermined by said issuing entity and/or to further assign said referral account to at least one additional referring entity in exchange for other benefits, the referral account being configurable to contain an undisclosed value that can only be determined by an assignee of the referral account at the time of a purchase at said merchant, the manner of payment of benefits by the issuing entity being determined such that the referral account never has a zero balance of available benefits;
a referral acceptor;a referral coordinator coupled to the referral acceptor;a referral calculator coupled to the referral coordinator andan input/output (I/O) device coupled to the referral coordinator,wherein the referral acceptor is configured to accept said referral account, wherein the referral account has a referrer identifier that identifies each referrer of the assignee of the referral account.