Patent ID: 7200255

Claim:
A system for processing documents comprising: at least one input receptacle for receiving documents; at least one output receptacle for receiving documents; an input device that receives customer identification information; an image scanner that obtains an image of at least a portion of at least one side of each received document and extracts, from each document image, an amount of information which uniquely identifies the document; an evaluation unit that determines a document value of each document; a transport mechanism that transports each received document, one at a time, from the at least one input receptacle, past the image scanner and evaluation unit, to the at least one output receptacle a processor that operates to create a searchable file, the searchable file comprising the extracted amount of information which uniquely identifies the document, the document value and the customer identification information; a memory that stores the searchable file; means for crediting an account associated with the customer identification information by an amount corresponding to the document value of each received document; means for searching the memory based on an amount of information which identifies at least one counterfeit document to identify customer identification information associated with any received document having matching information and; means for debiting the account associated with the retrieved customer identification information by an amount corresponding to the document value of each document with matching information.