JPH01152594A - Vending machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To relieve the load of customers by allowing the machine to accept cash or the like, after selling a prescribed article, issuing a monetary card for a surplus money and executing issue of the monentary card and the purchase of the article at the same time. CONSTITUTION: In the case of purchasing a railway ticket, for example, when a customer inserts a pre-paid card, a magnetic head 32 reads data and the balance is displayed and the purchase of the railway ticket is allowed within the balance. The monetary amount of the purchased railway ticket is substrated from the balance and the result is stored on the card. Then the pre-paid card is discharged by a carrying roller 34. On the other hand, in the case of purchasing a railway ticket by the inserted cash or credit card, at first a riding block key is depressed and the ticket is issued and discharged. Then away-out roller 36 is operated and a card among cars stacked in a card stocket 35 is paid out on a carrying path 31. The card is carried to positions of the magnetic head 32 and a puncher 33 and receives writing with a value of the residual amount and the card is discharged from a card insert discharge port 30.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (AL Industrial Field of Application) This invention relates to a vending machine that sells coupon cards (prepaid cards) and allows the purchase of products with the prepaid cards, and particularly relates to a vending machine that sells prepaid cards and products at the same time. Regarding vending machines that can be used.

(b) Prior Art Currently, prepaid cards are in practical use in vending machines for transportation tickets and the like. A prepaid card is a card that is sold at a price that corresponds to the value of the card and allows you to purchase products for an amount that corresponds to that value. Prepaid cards are sold at counters or vending machines. Therefore, a customer who wants to purchase a product with a prepaid card first purchases the prepaid card, and then inserts the prepaid card into a vending machine to purchase the desired product.

(C) Problems to be solved by the invention As described above, in the past, the sale of prepaid cards and the sale of products were carried out separately, so a customer who wanted to purchase a product with a prepaid card would have to make two transactions. It was sticky and time consuming. Furthermore, since conventional prepaid card vending machines and product vending machines were each dedicated machines, installing them required overlapping locations and a large sales space.

The present invention was made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an automatic plate vending machine that can simultaneously sell products and sell prepaid cards using the paid amount.

(Means for Solving Problem d1) In this invention, a vending machine has a payment means that accepts payment by cash or credit, a sales means that sells specified products at a price within the paid amount, and a vending machine that sells the remaining balance. It is characterized by having an issuing means for issuing as a cash voucher card.

(e) Function: The vending machine of the present invention accepts payment by cash or credit card and then allows the sale of products within this amount. If there is any remaining money after the product is sold, a gift card with the value of this remaining money is issued. This allows the customer to purchase a product and a gift card at the same time.

Furthermore, the number of vending machines installed can be reduced, and the vending machines do not require a change dispensing mechanism.

(flEmbodiment FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a ticket vending machine that is an embodiment of the present invention.Tickets can be purchased with cash or with a prepaid card.The operation of the entire device is controlled. The controller 10 includes an input display unit 1) that controls a keyboard and a display that displays amounts, etc., a cash processing unit 12 that processes inserted cash, and a prepaid card that is inserted to subtract the amount and also to process new purchases. A prepaid card processing section 13 that releases a prepaid card, a credit card processing section 14 that processes an inserted credit card, a ticket issuing section 15 that controls the issuance of tickets, and a credit card center 20 for communicating with each other. A transmission control unit 16 is connected. The keyboard includes a riding section key for inputting the amount of the ticket to be purchased (boarding section), and a card issue key that is pressed when issuing a prepaid card with the paid amount. The transmission control unit 16 connects to the center 2 via a public telephone line.
0 and authenticate the credit card.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a prepaid card processing section of the ticket vending machine. Between the prepaid card insertion/ejection opening 30 and the internal prepaid card stocker 35, there is a conveyance roller 34! A conveyance path 31 is formed by hand. On the conveyance path 31, there are provided a magnetic head 32 for reading and writing magnetic data of the prepaid card, and a punching device W33 for punching holes that serve as a guide for the amount to be spent. Further, a payout roller 36 is provided on the lower surface of the prepaid card stocker 35 for feeding out one stocked prepaid card onto the conveyance path 31.
A reverse rotation roller 37 for preventing two cards from being fed out is provided on the upper side near the prepaid card stocker. The prepaid cards stored in the prepaid card stocker 35 have a value of a certain amount (for example, 5,000 yen) stored in advance.

When a customer inserts a prepaid card at the time of purchasing a ticket, the magnetic head 32 reads the data, displays the balance, and allows the purchase of a ticket within the range of this balance. The amount of the purchased ticket is subtracted from the balance and stored on the card. Thereafter, this prepaid card is discharged by the transport roller 34. On the other hand, when a ticket is purchased using the inserted cash or credit card, the ticket purchase process (pressing the boarding section key - issuing/discharging the ticket) is first performed. Thereafter, the feeding roller 36 is operated to feed one prepaid card stacked in the prepaid card stocker 35 onto the conveyance path 31. The prepaid card is conveyed to the position of the magnetic head 32 and the punch device 33, and after being rewritten with the value of the balance of the paid amount, it is ejected from the prepaid card insertion/ejection port 30.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the ticket vending machine. This operation shows the operation when purchasing a ticket with cash or credit card. Waiting until cash or credit card is inserted at nl and n9.

If cash is inserted (nl), the process advances to n2 and accepts the key press. If the pressed key is a boarding section key, a ticket for that amount will be issued/discharged (n3)
, if there is any remaining money, return to n2. On the other hand, if the key pressed in n2 is the card issuing key, the process proceeds to n6, where one prepaid card is taken out from the prepaid card stocker 35, the magnetic data is subtracted to the value corresponding to the remaining amount, and a punch hole is punched (n7). ), and releases this prepaid card (n8). Note that if there is no remaining money at n4, the operation ends immediately.

Also, if a credit card is inserted (n9),
After accepting the input of the amount to be paid (n10), the process proceeds to n2.

If a prepaid card is inserted, the operation will be similar to normal sales.

Cash processing section 12. Credit card processing unit 14 and n
1 and n9 correspond to the payment means of the present invention, the ticket processing units 15 and n3 correspond to the sales means of the present invention, and the prepaid card processing unit 13 and n6 to n8 correspond to the issuing means of the present invention.

(g) Effects of the Invention As described above, according to the vending machine of the present invention, the cash machine, etc., can issue the remaining amount as a cash voucher card after selling the specified products. You can make a purchase and purchase a product at the same time. This saves the customer's time and effort compared to the conventional method of purchasing a cash voucher card and then inserting the cash voucher card into a vending machine to purchase a product. Further, since there is no need to separately provide a vending machine for coupon cards and a vending machine for products, the installation space and maintenance costs for the equipment can be reduced. Further, since the vending machine can issue the change in the form of a cash voucher card, a mechanism for processing change is not required, and the device can be simplified.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a control section of a ticket vending machine according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a schematic configuration of a prepaid card processing section of the same ticket vending machine, and FIG. It is a flowchart showing the operation of the ticket vending machine. 12-cash processing section, 13-prepaid card processing section, 15-ticket processing section, 35-prepaid card stocker.

Claims (1)

[Claims] (1) An automatic system comprising a payment means that accepts payment by cash or credit, a sales means that sells specified products at a price within the paid amount, and an issuing means that issues the remaining amount as a cash voucher card. vending machine.