Systems and methods using mobile communication handsets for providing postage

A system comprising:

• an activation server;
• a mobile communication device comprising one or more first processors and a first memory, wherein the one or more first processors are configured to:
• capture one or more images of a mail piece;
• extract information from the one or more images of the mail piece, wherein the information is extracted from human-readable information included in the one or more images of the mail piece and includes a token identifier corresponding to an activatable token;
• send the information extracted from the one or more captured images to an activation server;
• wherein the activation server comprises one or more second processors and a second memory, wherein the one or more second processors are configured to:
• receive the token identifier;
• activate the activatable token based on the token identifier;
• updating a status of an activatable token from the unactivated status to an activated status;
• transmit confirmation information to the mobile communication device, wherein the confirmation information indicates that the activatable token has been activated;
• wherein the one or more first processors of the mobile communication device are further configured to receive the confirmation information, wherein the mail piece is placed in a mail stream for mail service processing subsequent to receiving the confirmation information.

A token activation system for transforming a mail piece itself into a postage indicium comprising:

• a memory;
• one or more processors communicatively coupled to the memory and configured to:
• receive an image of a mail piece from a user device, wherein the image includes address information associated with the mail piece;
• execute a hash function against the image of the mail piece to generate a token from the image of the mail piece;
• store the token at the memory;
• transmit information to the user device to indicate that the token generated from the image of the mail piece has been activated, and wherein activation of the token indicates that the token is a valid postage indicium;
• receive a second image of the mail piece, wherein the second image of the mail piece is captured by an imaging device operating within a mail stream into which the mail piece has been placed;
• execute the hash function against the second image of the mail piece;
• and
• validate a result of the execution of the hash function against the second image of the mail piece and the token stored at the memory to determine whether the mail piece is associated with an activated token.