Patent ID: 7422147

Claim:
A method of detecting a fraudulent transaction of an item having an item-identifying indicium, wherein the item-identifying indicium includes at least one of a bar code, an RFID tag, a magnetic stripe, a pattern code, a two-dimensional bar code and a non-visible identification sign, the method comprising: processing the indicium to obtain item-identifying information stored in a data base, the item-identifying information being associated in the data base with a stored digital image of a surface area of the item; capturing a digital image of a predetermined surface area of an item using a digital image acquisition device; transferring the captured digital image from the digital image acquisition device to a processor; using the item-identifying information to retrieve the stored digital image of the surface area of the item associated with the item-identifying information; transferring the stored digital image from the data base to the processor; and subjecting the captured digital image and the stored digital image in the processor to an orientation invariant digital pattern match algorithm that computes a correlation value between the captured digital image and the stored digital image to determine if the captured digital image corresponds to the stored digital image as a function of a predetermined correlation threshold value.