Method of and System for Discovering and Reporting Trustworthiness and Credibility of Calling Party Number Information

• US 20120294435A1
• Filed: 08/06/2012
• Published: 11/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/19/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TrustID, Inc. (Neustar Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: TrustID, Inc. (Neustar Incorporated)
• Inventors: Cox, Patrick M., Greene, Richard J., Bockelman, Joseph H., Saitawdekar, Shreyas
• Granted Patent: US 9,001,985 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 379/201.02
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/06 Recording class or number of calling , i.e. A-party or called party , i.e. B-party
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/47 Fraud detection or prevention means
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/83 Notification aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 15/8351 before establishing a communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 17/02 Coin-freed or check-freed systems , e.g. mobile- or card-operated phones, public telephones or booths

Abstract

A method of and system for discovering and reporting the trustworthiness and credibility of calling party number information, such as Automatic Number Identification (ANI) or Calling Number Identification (Caller ID) information, or for inbound telephone calls. The disclosed method entails the use of real time telephone network status and signaling, network data, locally stored data, and predictive analytics. Practice of the disclosed method is neither detectable by nor intrusive to the calling party, and the method can be implemented into existing enterprise, telecommunications, and information service infrastructures.

Claims

1-3. -3. (canceled)

4. A method of determining a source origin confidence metric of a calling party number or billing number associated with an incoming call from a telephonic device, comprising:

receiving the calling party number or billing number;

after receiving the calling party number or billing number and before the incoming call is answered, gathering operational status information associated with the calling party number or billing number; and

determining the source origin confidence metric for the calling party number or billing number.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising receiving characteristics of the incoming call.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein characteristics of the incoming call include one or more of time of day, trunk number, ANI II digits, dialed number information, an identifier of an originating switch, SIP Header information, SIP routing information, transaction number, call frequency indicator, SS7 data or a unique call identifier.

7. The method of claim 4, further comprising determining whether the format of the calling party number or billing number is valid.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising upon determining that the format of the calling party number or billing number is invalid, generating a message that indicates the calling party number or billing number is invalid.

9. The method of claim 4, further comprising obtaining a number of calls within a given timeframe that have been originated from the calling party number or billing number.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising determining whether the number of calls within a given timeframe that have been originated from the calling party number or billing number exceeds a threshold.

11. The method of claim 4, further comprising:

adjusting the source origin confidence metric based on personal risk factors of an entity associated with the calling party number or billing number.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the personal risk factors include one or more of fraud score, risk score, credit score, marketing score, affinity score, expansion score, or warning indicators for bankruptcy, or whether a person associated with the calling party number or billing number is deceased.

13. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

retrieving consortium information from an external database.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the external database includes data such as calling velocity to multiple locations within a specified time period for the calling party number or billing number, or known fraudulent calling party numbers or billing numbers.

15. A method for authenticating a calling party, comprising:

receiving an incoming call from a telephonic device at a call center;

receiving a calling party number or billing number associated with the received incoming call;

prior to answering the incoming call, requesting a source origin confidence metric for the calling party number or billing number from an authentication system, wherein the confidence metric is determined based on an operational status of the calling party number or billing number;

receiving the confidence metric for the calling party number or billing number; and

answering the incoming call following receipt of the source origin confidence metric.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

determining a script for the incoming call based on the received source origin confidence metric.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

providing an additional call center metric to the authentication system, wherein the additional call center metric is used to adjust the source origin confidence metric.

18. The method of claim 15, wherein the source origin confidence metric is a probability that the calling party number or the billing number is valid.

19. The method of claim 15, wherein the source origin confidence metric indicates either the calling party number or the billing number is valid or invalid.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the source origin confidence metric indicates a calling party number or billing number validity indicator, wherein the validity indicators comprise a static set of predetermined indicators.

21. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

adjusting the source origin confidence metric based on personal risk factors of an entity associated with the calling party number or billing number.

22. The method of claim 15, wherein the personal risk factors include one or more of fraud score, risk score, credit score, marketing score, affinity score, expansion score, or warning indicators for bankruptcy, or whether a person associated with the calling party number or billing number is deceased.

23. The method of claim 15, wherein the operational status of the calling party number or billing number is based on operational status information gathered by placing an outgoing call to the calling party number or billing number and receiving call progress messages associated with the outgoing call.