Domestic origination to international termination country set logic
View Patent ↗A method and device for preventing fraud in international calls in a long-distance telecommunications system, where selected customers can avoid fraud control blocks and greater granularity is achieved in blocking international destinations. In the method and device, an override flag is created in the records of the Billing Number Screening (BNS) database. When a call is made using a billing number whose corresponding record has the override flag set, the call is not stopped by fraud control blocks on certain international destinations. In addition, international destinations can be blocked with greater specificity because a Country Set Logic (CSET) field is added to the International City Code Database. The addition of CSET to this database allows particular international city destinations to be blocked from certain origin points.
1. A method for suppressing a fraud control block in a telecommunications system, comprising the steps of:
maintaining at least one record associated with a customer account;
adding an override flag field to each of the at least one record;
determining if an override flag is set in a record of the at least one record, when said record is accessed during call processing of a call using a customer account associated with said record;
overriding one or more fraud control blocks on an exchange blocked from processing the call if it is determined that the override flag is set; and
if overriding the one or more fraud control blocks, blocking the call based on an originating number of the call.
2. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the at least one record in the maintaining step is maintained in a Billed Number Screening (BNS) database.
3. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the call in the determining step is a special service call.
4. The method as recited in claim 3 , wherein the special service call is an international call.
5. A device for suppressing a fraud control block in a telecommunications system, comprising:
a database for maintaining at least one record associated with a customer account and having an override flag;
means for determining if the override flag is set in a record of the at least one record, when said record is accessed during call processing of a call using a customer account associated with said record;
means for overriding one or more fraud control blocks on an exchange blocked from processing the call if the determining means determines that the override flag is set; and
means for blocking the call based on an originating number of the call, if the overriding means overrides the one or more fraud control blocks.
6. The device as recited in claim 5 , wherein the database is a Billing Number Screening (BNS) database.
7. The device as recited in claim 5 , wherein the call is a special service call, and further wherein the means for determining and the means for overriding comprises a call processing platform.
8. A method of fraud control for a call from an originating number to an international destination, comprising:
overriding a call block to the international destination applied at an exchange level of the originating number, based on an override flag associated with an account of the caller; and
blocking the call based on the originating number if the call block at the exchange level of the originating number is overridden.
9. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the call is blocked based on a comparison of a first field value of an origin record associated with an origin point of the call and a second field value of a destination city record associated with a destination city of the call.
10. The device as recited in claim 5 , wherein the call is blocked based a comparison of a first field value of an origin record associated with an origin point of the call and a second field value of a destination city record associated with a destination city of the call, if the overriding means overrides the one or more fraud control blocks.
11. The method as recited in claim 8 , wherein the call is blocked based on a comparison of a first field value of an origin record associated with an origin point of the call and a second field value of a destination city record associated with a destination city of the call if the call block at the exchange level of the originating number is overridden.