Patent ID: 6907114

Claim:
A method of increasing or maintaining usage of a selected telephone company's lines, and for accessing an established fund, there being an associated fund telephone number, which includes the steps: a) providing a protocol by which a telephone user becomes eligible to obtain access to said fund, wherein the following steps are provided: i) the user uses the telephone company's line or line segment, or connections to make a call to said associated fund telephone number, ii) the user's identifier is provided and communicated to the telephone company or to the fund, and b) selecting at least one user identifier from a group of such identifiers, which validates user access to the fund, c) monitoring incoming calls to said associated fund telephone number to determine whether or not they are incoming on said selected telephone company's line or line segment or connections, d) and effectively blocking usage for access to the fund of calls incoming on lines other than said telephone company's line or line segment or connections, thereby excluding access to the fund of said calls on said other lines.