Patent ID: 8086223

Claim:
A method for delivering customized greeting messages to callers comprising: receiving, at a mobile communication device, a call from a remote device; determining, via a message handling engine stored in a storage medium of the mobile communication device and executing on hardware of the mobile communication device, a greeting message is to be conveyed to the remote device due to a failure of a receiving party to answer the call; identifying, responsive to the receiving of the call, at the mobile communication device, a set of devices proximate to the call receiving device, utilizing a proximity detection engine stored in a storage medium of the mobile communication device and executing on hardware of the mobile communication device; connecting to one of the proximate devices over a wireless personal area network (PAN); receiving a greeting message content generated by the connected proximate device; determining, at the mobile communication device using the message handling engine of the mobile communication device, one of many different greeting messages based upon the identified set of proximate devices, wherein each of the many different greeting messages are stored in a storage medium of the mobile communication device, wherein the determined greeting message comprises the greeting message content; and conveying the determined greeting message from the mobile communication device to the remote device.