Not knowing the specifics of this process, this is a shot in the dark, but how about adding a command button to run this process? You could enable or disable it depending on the results of your validation in the lostfocus. Something along these lines:

IF MCard_Nbr <> Card_Nbr .OR. DELETE()
     do quickmsg with "CUSTOMER'S CARD NO. NOT ON FILE"
     thisform.mytextbox1.setfocus()
     thisform.cmdProcess.Enabled = .f.
else
     thisform.cmdProcess.Enabled = .t.
ENDIF

>looks like that will work. 1 quest. if the input is correct, I
>want further processing to continue, where does that code go?
>

kenweber
GCom2 Solutions
Microsoft Certified Professional