Patent ID: 7613657

Claim:
A method for reverse rating a service use transaction, the method comprising: receiving through a communication interface a reverse rating rate message for a telecommunications service use transaction; processing the reverse rating message to obtain a source identifier from the reverse rating rate message; determining whether a customer account exists for the source identifier; when no customer account exists, initiating transmission through the communication interface of a no-account rejection response; and when the customer account does exist: establishing a resource expenditure threshold for determining a maximal duration of the telecommunications service use transaction; initiating determination of multiple partial service use durations, each for a specific time band; maintaining a sum of the multiple partial service use durations; monitoring a resource expenditure as the multiple partial service use durations are determined; comparing the resource expenditure against the resource expenditure threshold; when the resource expenditure exceeds the resource expenditure threshold, returning the sum as an approximation to the maximal duration of the service use transaction; and, when the resource expenditure does not exceed the resource expenditure threshold and there are no more partial service use durations to determine, returning the sum as the maximal duration of the service use transaction.