Patent ID: 7149294

Claim:
A method of an alternative telephone information service to provide a telephone caller with caller requested information comprising: identifying a unique card number and a first voice telephone number and a second voice telephone number on one of many publicly distributed access cards where each access card exhibits a unique card number; placing a call using said first voice telephone number to the alternative telephone information service using a telephone service company other than the alternative telephone information service and said first voice telephone number, and registering and recording a unique caller account comprising said unique card number, a caller specified unique password and a monetary amount; placing a call using said second voice telephone number to the alternative telephone information service using a telephone service company other than the alternative telephone information service; authorizing use of registered unique caller account; requesting caller requested information of the alternative telephone information service; hearing predetermined promotional message content; receiving caller requested information; recording the occurrence of the caller event in the unique caller account; and terminating the call.