| 摘要 |
A system of remotely distributed machines (96, 98, 100, 102) is provided for paying bills issued by each of several different remote issuers (90, 92, 94), such as telephone, electricity, gas, and electric utilities or department stores of credit card companies. Each machine has its own computer (80), a scanner (38) for reading information from the bills (86), and for accepting payments, as well as for entering (26, 27), displaying (15) and correcting billing information manually. A bill is inserted by the user into the machine's scanner or a bar-code reader (38), preferably an OCR or other human-readable information scanner, which reads the identity of the issuer, the amount owed, and the due date for payment, etc. The user deposits payment into the machine (10, 24), in cash, or by debit or credit card, and the computer (80) in each machine (10) gives credit for payments made, computes the amount of any late penalites, and computes the balance due. The credits are stored in the machine (10) and the information is conveyed to the proper one of the different issuers. The cash funds are collected regularly from the machines and credited to the accounts of the different issuers (90, 92, 94) in accordance with the issuer identification data and credits stored in the machine (10). Payments made by the debit or credit card are disbursed automatically via the bank clearing systems. Communications between the machines and the issuers is by land lines, or the Internet, with radio or satellite links (88, 91, 93). |
