Patent ID: 7822659

Claim:
A method comprising: maintaining, by a service provider, a payment account corresponding to a subscriber; receiving, by a receiver of the service provider, charging data from the subscriber, where the charging data is for a transaction and comprises a price of an item and payment information for a content provider providing the item, where the item comprises content or a service; in response to the service provider determining that the payment account corresponding to the subscriber has sufficient funds or credit for the transaction, sending a report from a transmitter of the service provider to the subscriber, where the report indicates that the transaction is approved by the service provider, where the report further comprises a transaction identifier for the transaction and service provider details; receiving, by the receiver of the service provider, a message from the subscriber, where the message comprises the price of the item and the transaction identifier; in response to the receiver of the service provider receiving the message from the subscriber, debiting, by the service provider, the payment account corresponding to the subscriber for the price of the item; and in response to occurrence of a predetermined event, paying, by the service provider, an amount of the price of the item to the content provider.