Automatic revenue protection and adjustment of postal indicia products

1. A method comprising:

at a first location, optically scanning a unique postal indicium printed by a sender and affixed to a mail piece to obtain an image of a human readable portion and an image of a machine readable portion of the unique postal indicium;

automatically decoding the image of the machine readable portion to obtain a value corresponding to a data record associated with the unique postal indicium and to determine whether the unique postal indicium is a mail piece dependent indicium, and, when the indicium is mail piece dependent, reading a flag in the machine readable portion indicating whether a delivery point code on the mail piece has been validated prior to being printed on the mail piece, and handling the mail piece responsive to the determining and reading;

using the value to retrieve the data record from a database disposed at the first location;

automatically recognizing alphanumeric characters in the image of the human readable portion;

comparing the recognized alphanumeric characters with retrieved information from a portion of the retrieved data record to determine whether the retrieved information matches the recognized alphanumeric characters;

calculating a class of service based on an amount paid for the unique postal indicium, type of mail piece, and a rate table;

performing automatic account adjustment processing on an account associated with a source of the unique postal indicium, when a result of the comparing indicates an incorrect tariff associated with the mail piece, the account adjustment processing including adjusting an account associated with a source of the unique postal indicium based on the result of the comparing, and updating account information at a point of automation in a second location geographically different from the first location with a result of the comparison, the automatic account adjustment processing occurring periodically at predetermined intervals of time; and

outputting information to report results of the automatic account adjustment processing.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performing automatic account adjustment on the account associated with the source of the unique postal indicium comprises:

subtracting an amount equal to a deficiency in the incorrect tariff, from a balance amount in the account associated with the source of the unique postal indicium.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

comparing the recognized alphanumeric characters against the rate table for the mail piece; and

adjusting the account based on results of the comparison, if the recognized alphanumeric characters do not match the rate table.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the performing automatic account adjustment processing on the account comprises:

adjusting the account to reflect payment of a periodic maintenance fee.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein performing automatic account adjustment processing on the account comprises:

adjusting the account to reflect payment of a fine.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the outputting information to report results of the automatic account adjustment processing comprises:

outputting the information to a reporting system.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein an amount that the account is adjusted is a difference between a correct tariff for delivery of the mail piece and the incorrect tariff.

8. A nontransitory machine-readable medium having stored thereon executable instructions for performing a method comprising:

receiving optically scanned information from an optical scan of a unique postal indicium affixed to a mail piece, the optically scanned information including an image of a human readable portion and an image of a machine readable portion different than the human readable portion;

automatically decoding the image of the machine readable portion to obtain a value corresponding to a data record associated with the unique postal indicium;

reading a flag in the machine readable portion indicating whether a delivery point code on the mail piece has been validated prior to being printed on the mail piece, and handling the mail piece responsive to the reading;

using the value to retrieve the data record from a database;

automatically recognizing alphanumeric characters in the image of the human readable portion;

comparing the recognized alphanumeric characters with retrieved information from a portion of the retrieved data record to obtain a comparison result;

performing automatic account adjustment processing on an account associated with a source of the unique postal indicium, when the comparison result indicates an incorrect tariff associated with a mail piece to which the unique postal indicium is affixed, the account adjust processing including adjusting an account associated with a source of the unique postal indicium based on the result of the comparing; and

outputting information to report results of the automatic account adjustment processing.

9. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the performing automatic account adjustment on the account associated with the source of the unique postal indicium comprises:

subtracting an amount equal to an as needed amount of postage printed in the unique postal indicium from a balance amount in the account associated with the source of the unique postal indicium.

10. The machine-readable medium of claim 9 , further comprising:

comparing the optically scanned information representing the machine readable portion against a rate table for the mail piece; and

adjusting the account based on results of the comparison, if the recognized alphanumeric characters do not match the rate table.

11. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the performing automatic account adjustment processing on the account comprises:

adjusting the account to reflect payment of a periodic maintenance fee.

12. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein performing automatic account adjustment processing on the account comprises:

adjusting the account to reflect payment of fine.

13. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the outputting information to report results of the automatic account adjustment processing comprises:

outputting the information to a reporting system.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein the machine readable portion is a bar code.

15. The machine-readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the machine readable portion is a bar code.