Patent ID: 8239268

Claim:
A self-checkout terminal, comprising: an article code reading device for optically reading a code symbol affixed to an article and specifying the article, for decoding an article code, and for outputting the article code; an image pickup part for picking up an image of an area where an article, the code symbol of which is read by the article code reading device, is positioned, and for outputting picked-up image data; an alarming device for generating an alarm; means for executing an article registration process by searching an article data file, which stores prices corresponding to article codes, for a corresponding price when the article code reading device reads the code symbol; means for executing an extraction process for extracting an exterior characteristic of the article from the picked-up image data outputted by the image pickup part; means for determining whether first data and second data are consistent with each other, the first data being obtained based on the extraction process and the second data being obtained based on an output from the article code reading device, wherein the means for determining comprises: (i) means for obtaining a number of articles whose exterior characteristics are extracted by the extraction process as the first data; (ii) means for obtaining a number of article codes outputted by the article code reading device as the second data; and (iii) means for comparing the number obtained as the first data and the number obtained as the second data to determine whether the first data and the second data are consistent with each other; and means for causing the alarming device to generate the alarm when it is determined that the first data and the second data are not consistent with each other, wherein the number of articles obtained as the first data is obtained based on picked-up data outputted by the image pickup part within an established time of one transaction, the established time of one transaction corresponding to an amount of time sufficient for a plurality of the articles to pass through the article code reading device during one code symbol reading operation, and the number of article codes obtained as the second data is obtained based on the number of article codes outputted by the article code reading device within the established time.