Enforcing payment schedules

Abstract

A payment schedule enforcement system and method cause various actions to be taken in response to nonpayment by the debtor. Such actions include remotely activating an alert message, disabling a vehicle or other product, or the like. Upon occurrence of a specified event, a message is sent to a remotely located device, such as one installed in a vehicle or other product. The remotely located device is configured so that it can disable the vehicle (for example by disabling the starter circuitry) upon receipt of the message from the operations center.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This invention is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 856,968 for “Encoding Data in a Password”, filed May 28, 2004, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates to enforcement of payment schedules by remote disablement of a device in response to a missed payment or other event. [0004] 2. Description of the Related Art [0005] Lenders have various mechanisms for enforcing payment of debt obligations, particularly those obligations that arise from the sale of goods or property on credit. For example, mortgagees can foreclose on real property if a mortgagor defaults. Vehicle finance companies can repossess a vehicle in the event the purchaser fails to make timely payment. [0006] In some cases, payment schedule enforcement mechanisms based on foreclosure and / or repossession are expensive and cumbersome to implement. Acc...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014] The present invention thus provides a system and method for enforcing payment schedules that avoids the limitations of prior art systems. Improved flexibility and ease-of-use are provided by the use of an operations center that transmits messages instructing remotely controlled devices to disable products or to perform other functions. The present invention thus enables payment enforcement with less reliance on decentralized components and without requiring repeated transmission of codes (or manual entry of codes) to keep a vehicle from shutting down.

Problems solved by technology

In some cases, payment schedule enforcement mechanisms based on foreclosure and / or repossession are expensive and cumbersome to implement.

Accordingly, lenders often refuse to extend credit when the likelihood of default exceeds some amount, because of the expense or impracticality of repossessing or otherwise enforcing payment obligations.

In particular, potential buyers with bad credit history may be denied credit when attempting to purchase a vehicle or other item because of the relatively high likelihood of default.

In addition, payments on less expensive items such as appliances, computers, and the like are often difficult to enforce because repossession is far too expensive in relation to the value of the item itself, and because the item loses much of its value once it is used.

Failure to enter the password causes the vehicle to be disabled, for example by interrupting the starter circuitry.

However, significant human intervention (and thereby expense) is involved, which can reduce the efficiency of such mechanisms.

In addition, there is often some burden and stigma associated with having a payment disablement system installed in a vehicle, which limits the feasible application of such devices.

In addition, such devices are usually configured as “fail-safe to disable”, meaning that if no code is entered or no other communication is received, the vehicle will be disabled.

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