Patent ID: 7210583

Claim:
A card reader, comprising: a receiving arrangement configured to sequentially receive cards from an upstream process and position the cards to be read; a first reader configured to read card information from a first encoded region of cards a first time; a second reader configured to read card information from the first encoded region of cards a second time, wherein the second reader is positioned such that the information is read by the second reader after the information is read by the first reader; an advancing mechanism configured to advance cards from the receiving arrangement, through the first and second readers, to a downstream process; a processor programmed to: receive and store card carrier information for each of at least two card carriers, wherein the card carrier information identifies at least one card relating to each card carrier; receive card information relating to a specific card from the first reader; receive card information relating to the specific card from the second reader; compare the card information as read by the first reader to the card information as read by the second reader and reject the specific card if the card information is inconsistent; compare the card information as read by either the first or second reader to the card carrier information for each of the at least two card carriers; and reject the specific card if the card information does not match the card carrier information for one of the at least two card carriers; and a card mounting unit configured to mount cards to one of the at least two carriers if the card's card information matches the card carrier information of the carrier.