Patent ID: 8670527

Claim:
A method, comprising: detecting an incoming voice mail message to a voice mail system; accessing information associated with the incoming voice mail message; comparing the information associated with the incoming voice mail message with other information in a third-party information database that stores second information related to known spammers and known spam voice mail messages, said second information in the database comprising caller ID data associated with the known spam voice mail messages; comparing the information associated with the incoming voice mail message with third information associated with other voice mail messages in the voice mail system, the other voice mail messages not yet known to be related to known spammers and not yet known to be spam voice mail messages; categorizing the voice mail message as suspected spam based on the comparison of the information associated with the incoming voice mail message with the other information in the third-party information database and the comparison of the third information associated with the incoming voice mail message with the information associated with other voice mail messages in the voice mail system if preponderance of the information for the voice mail message compared is within a configurable percentage of each other; increasing spam score for the suspected spam; storing the categorized voice mail message as suspected spam; and providing an interface for receiving input from a user indicating whether the stored voice mail message is spam or legitimate.