Call processing system with call screening

DETAILED DESCRIPTION For many years the telephone system in general has known certain information about the phone from which a call has been made.
For example, the telephone system has known what area code the call was placed from, the long distance carrier of the phone call, and even the approximate geographic location for a non-mobile phone based on the first six digits of the caller's number.
This geographic information comes from the Local Exchange Routing Guide of Bell Core (LERG).
However, in reality, the extent of information that has been collected to date about a calling party by the telephone system is quite low.
For example, consider a home in which two or more people reside.
If a call is placed from that home there is no way of knowing, as the call is handled by the telephone system, who is making the call.
The only thing the telephone system may know is the approximate geographic location of a non-mobile phone and the calling number.
The call may even have been placed by a visitor to the home.
The examples of lack of knowledge about the calling party quickly expand when one considers phone calls originating from institutions (for example, hotels, hospitals, airports, offices, prisons, universities, etc.
).
Then consider mobile phones, Personal Communication System (PCS) Service, air phones, maritime phones, and cellular phones, and it soon becomes apparent how little information is really known about a calling party.
A public phone (such as a pay phone) in a lobby of an institution, provides little if any information about the calling party especially if the calling party is paying cash for the call.
Businesses have attempted to learn more about a calling party by asking questions of the calling party when their call is received.
For example, a rental car company receives a call from a person wanting to rent a car.
A live attendant for the rental car company will collect information about the call by asking several questions.
Consider that the caller is likely to have rented a car previously from the same company