Patent ID: 7359494

Claim:
A system for controlling restricted telephone calls that originate from a facility, the system comprising: a facility resident telephone for calling a destination telephone as a first collect call, wherein the first collect call is completed when accepted at the destination telephone; a call processing platform electrically coupled to the facility resident telephone for prompting for a message to be recorded from the facility resident telephone for the destination telephone and storing the message in a queue, when the first collect call is not completed and when a total number of messages for the destination telephone which are stored in the queue at the time the first collect call is not completed is less than a predetermined threshold; and a message delivery module electrically coupled to the call processing platform for, in response to the message having been recorded and stored, calling the destination telephone as a second collect call subsequent to the first collect call not being completed and delivering the message to the destination telephone when the second collect call is completed upon being accepted at the destination telephone, removing the message from the queue of the call processing platform upon the message being delivered to the destination telephone, prompting for a response to the message to be recorded from the destination telephone during the second collect call after the message has been delivered, and storing the response for subsequent retrieval by the facility resident telephone.