U.S. patent number 7,904,354 [Application Number 11/800,502] was granted by the patent office on 2011-03-08 for web based auto bill analysis method.
This patent grant is currently assigned to Validas, LLC. Invention is credited to Todd M. Dunphy, Thomas F. Pepe.
United States Patent |
7,904,354 |
Pepe , et al. |
March 8, 2011 |
Web based auto bill analysis method
Abstract
Method for automatically analyzing customer's bill, such as cell
phone bill, received in electronic format for errors and
utilization against company's published plan by third-party on
third-party's website for customer. The company's published plan is
previously stored on third-party's website. Third-party advises
customer of results, in real-time, and provides blind feedback to
billing company by type error and utilization. Results and feedback
are specific to each customer and billing company, and also
provides security for both. Promotional materials are provided to
customer for revenue to third-party.
Inventors: |
Pepe; Thomas F. (Missouri City,
TX), Dunphy; Todd M. (Missouri City, TX) |
Assignee: |
Validas, LLC (Missouri City,
TX)
|
Family
ID: |
39940253 |
Appl.
No.: |
11/800,502 |
Filed: |
May 4, 2007 |
Prior Publication Data
|
|
|
|
Document
Identifier |
Publication Date |
|
US 20080275774 A1 |
Nov 6, 2008 |
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
705/30; 705/34;
705/40; 455/406 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G06Q
20/102 (20130101); G06Q 30/0273 (20130101); G06Q
40/12 (20131203); G06Q 30/04 (20130101); G06Q
30/06 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
G07B
17/00 (20060101); G06Q 40/00 (20060101); G07F
19/00 (20060101); H03C 1/52 (20060101) |
Field of
Search: |
;705/34,40 ;455/406 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Other References
Companies implement their own call accounting solutions to ensure
telecom-billing accuracy. PRNewswire. Oct. 26, 2005. (Retrieved
using Dialog Quicksearch on Sep. 22, 2010). cited by
examiner.
|
Primary Examiner: Gart; Matthew S
Assistant Examiner: Zare; Scott A
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Parks & Associates, P.C.
Claims
That claimed is:
1. A computer-implemented method run on a third-party's website
system server computer for real-time automatic analysis of a bill
for errors and utilization from bills of billing companies
generated in electronic format by a billing company over the
internet to said third-party's website system server computer and
said third-party's website system server computer having loaded in
its memory public published billing plans of billing companies
previously stored on said third-party's website system server
computer for providing analysis and feedback which are specific to
each bill analyzed and each billing company by a third-party on
behalf of a submitter of said bill and advising the submitter of
results and providing feed back to billing companies which are
specific to each bill and each billing company, while providing
security for both, and for providing promotional materials to said
bill submitter comprising: a. receiving a log-on request at a
third-party's website system server computer from a submitter of a
bill generated in electronic format by a billing company for
analysis of errors and utilization, b. providing space on said
third-party's website system server computer at said third-party's
website for entry of ID, password and said bill by said submitter
of said bill, c. loading said bill generated in electronic format
by said billing company to said third-party server computer website
system for analysis of errors and utilization, d. reading fields of
data on said bill generated in electronic format by said billing
company from said third-party's website system server computer, e.
arranging said fields of data electronically formatted from said
bill into memory for comparison against said billing company's
previously stored public published billing plans, f. analyzing said
arranged fields of electronic data in memory from said bill for
errors and utilization on said bill against said previously stored
published pubic billing plans of said billing company, g.
generating a report from said third-party's website system server
computer of said errors and utilization of said bill against said
previously stored published public plan of said billing company, h.
displaying said error and utilization report of results of analyzed
billing company bill from said third-party's website system server
computer while said bill submitter is logged on said third-party's
website system server computer, i. displaying promotional materials
from said third-party's website system server computer to said bill
submitter, and j. sending said error and utilization report from
said third-party's website system server computer to said billing
company for corrective action, k. collecting a summary in memory
from said generated reports, wherein the summary is organized by
categories and error type of each billing company for all billing
companies analyzed by said third-party's website system server
computer for a predetermined time, l. storing said collection
summary on said third-party's website system server computer for a
predetermined time, and m. generating from said third-party's
website system server computer an error and utilization report
summary for each billing company analyzed by said third-party's
website system server computer, wherein each error and utilization
report summary relates to a single, specific billing company, and
wherein each error and utilization report summary comprises
collective errors and utilization of said specific billing company
for said predetermined time.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising: a. said bill submitter
paying by electronic payment through said third-party's website
server computer to said third-party company for said generated
report for errors and utilization of said bill, b. displaying an
option by said third-party's website system server computer for
said promotional materials to said bill submitter to receive said
promotional materials, c. displaying by said third-party's website
system server computer to said bill submitter said generated report
for said error and utilization of said bill from said billing
company, while bill submitter is logged on said server computer,
and d. submitting by said third-party's website system server
computer said error and utilization report of said bill to said
billing company for correction of said bill submitted.
3. The method of claim 2 wherein said submitting of said error and
utilization report to said billing company for correction
comprises: a. submitting by said third-party's website system
server computer said error and utilization report of said bill to
said billing company for correction of said bill by said
submitter's name and account number.
4. The method of claim 2 wherein said submitting of said error and
utilization report to said billing company for correction
comprises; a. submitting by said third-party's website system
server computer follow up emails regarding said error and
utilization report of said bill to said billing company for
correction in said submitter's name and account number.
5. The method of claim 2 wherein said submitting of said error and
utilization report to said billing company for correction
comprises: a. submitting by said third-party's website system
server computer follow up emails on said error and utilization
report of said bill to said bill submitter for said bill submitter
to send for correction by said billing company.
6. The method of claim 2 wherein displaying an option for said
promotional materials for said bill submitter to receive said
promotional materials further comprises: a. optioning in through
said third-party's website system server computer by bill submitter
for a marketing message to be received by selected media, b.
accepting through said third-party's website system server computer
terms and conditions of use by said bill submitter, c. selecting
through said third-party's website system server computer said type
of media to receive promotional materials by said bill submitter,
d. viewing through said third-party's website system server
computer promotional materials, e. displaying by said third-party's
website system server computer a promotional code, and f. entering
through said third-party's website system server computer said
promotional code for said bill submitter to receive promotional
benefit.
7. The method of claim 6 wherein selected media further comprises:
a. selecting through said third-party's website system server
computer from the group of audio, video, email, mobile devices, and
on screen.
8. A computer-implemented method run on a third-party's website
system server computer for real-time automatic analysis of a cell
phone bill for errors and utilization from bills of billing
companies generated in electronic format by a cell phone company
over the internet to said third-party's website system server
computer and said third-party's website system server computer
having loaded in its memory public published billing plans of cell
phone companies previously stored on said third-party's website
system server computer for providing analysis and feedback which
are specific to each cell phone bill analyzed and each cell phone
billing company by a third-party on behalf of a submitter of said
cell phone bill and advising the submitter of results and providing
feed back to cell phone billing companies which are specific to
each cell phone bill and each cell phone billing company, while
providing security for both, and for providing promotional
materials to said bill submitter comprising: a. receiving a log-on
request at a third-party's website system server computer from a
submitter of a cell phone bill generated in electronic format by a
cell phone billing company for analysis of errors and utilization,
b. providing space on said third-party's website system server
computer at said third-party's website for entry of ID, password
and said cell phone bill by said submitter of said cell phone bill,
c. loading said cell phone bill generated in electronic format by
said cell phone billing company to said third-party server computer
website system for analysis of errors and utilization, d. reading
fields of data on said cell phone bill electronically formatted by
said cell phone billing company from said third-party's website
system server computer, e. arranging said fields of data
electronically formatted from said cell phone bill into memory for
comparison against said cell phone billing company's public
published previously stored billing plans, f. analyzing said
arranged fields of electronic data in memory from said cell phone
bill for errors and utilization on said bill against said
previously stored published public billing plans of said cell phone
billing company, g. generating a report from said third-party's
website system server computer of said errors and utilization of
said cell phone bill against said previously stored published
public plan of said cell phone billing company, h. displaying said
error and utilization report of results of analyzed cell phone
billing company bill from said third-party's website system server
computer while said bill submitter is logged on said third-party's
website system server computer, i. displaying promotional materials
from said third-party's website system server computer to said cell
phone bill submitter, j. sending said error and utilization report
from said third-party's website system server computer to said cell
phone billing company for corrective action, k. collecting a
summary in memory from said generated reports, wherein the summary
is organized by categories and error type of each cell phone
billing company for all cell phone billing companies analyzed by
said third-party's website system server computer for a
predetermined time, l. storing said collection summary on said
third-party's website system server computer for a predetermined
time, and m. generating from said third-party's website system
server computer an error and utilization report summary for each
cell phone billing company analyzed by said third-party's website
system server computer, wherein each error and utilization report
summary relates to a single, specific cell phone billing company,
and wherein each error and utilization report summary comprises
collective errors and utilization of said specific cell phone
billing company for said predetermined time.
9. The method of claim 8 further comprising: a. said cell phone
bill submitter paying by electronic payment through said
third-party's website server computer to said third-party company
for said generated report for errors and utilization of said cell
phone bill, b. displaying an option through said third-party's
website system server computer for said promotional materials to
said bill submitter to receive said promotional materials, c.
displaying by said third-party's website system server computer to
said bill submitter said generated report for said error and
utilization of said bill from said cell phone billing company,
while bill submitter is logged on said third-party's website system
server computer, and d. submitting by said third-party's website
system server computer said error and utilization report of said
bill to said cell phone billing company for correction of said bill
submitted.
10. The method of claim 9 wherein said submitting of said error and
utilization report to said cell phone billing company for
correction comprises: a. submitting by said third-party's website
system server computer said error and utilization report of said
cell phone bill to said cell phone billing company for correction
of said cell phone bill by said submitter's name and account
number.
11. The method of claim 9 wherein said submitting of said error and
utilization report to said cell phone billing company for
correction comprises; a. submitting by said third-party's website
system server computer follow up emails regarding said error and
utilization report of said cell phone bill to said cell phone
billing company for correction in said submitter's name and account
number.
12. The method of claim 9 wherein said submitting of said error and
utilization report to said cell phone billing company for
correction comprises: a. submitting by said third-party's website
system server computer follow up emails on said error and
utilization report of said cell phone bill to said bill submitter
for said bill submitter to send for correction by said cell phone
billing company.
13. The method of claim 9 wherein displaying an option for said
promotional materials for said bill submitter to receive said
promotional materials further comprises: a. optioning in through
said third-party's website system server computer by bill submitter
for a marketing message to be received by selected media, b.
accepting through said third-party's website system server computer
terms and conditions of use by said bill submitter, c. selecting
through said third-party's website system server computer said type
of media to receive promotional materials by said bill submitter,
d. viewing through said third-party's website system server
computer promotional materials, e. displaying by said third-party's
website system server computer a promotional code, and f. entering
through said third-party's website system server computer said
promotional code for said bill submitter to receive promotional
benefit.
14. The method of claim 13 wherein selected media further
comprises: a. selecting through said third-party's website system
server computer from the group of audio, video, email, mobile
devices, and on screen.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to business methods and systems for
automatically analyzing in real time a customer's bill, such as a
customer's cell phone bill, for errors and utilization of the
services or products from the billing company, and providing a
report back in real-time to the customer and/or billing company by
a third-party providing the corrective actions necessary. The
invention is achieved by the billing company, such as a cell phone
provider, sending out and/or providing a bill in electronic format
to the customer and the customer sending the bill in electronic
format to a third-party for the third-party to analyze the
customer's bill for errors and utilization of billing received by
the customer relative to the billing company's published billing
plan previously stored on the third-party's website system.
The analysis of the customer's bill is conducted on the
third-party's website system in real-time for errors in the billing
and for utilization of the services or products. The analyzed
results are prepared into a report to display the results. The
customer is advised electronically by displaying in real-time an
indication that a report is ready which then allows the customer to
enter payment information and/or view promotional materials
provided by the third-party and elect to view the promotional
materials prior to viewing their report of their analyzed bill for
errors and utilization. After reviewing the report of the analyzed
bill for errors and utilization, the customer and/or third-party
forwards the results of the report to the billing company, such as
the cell phone company, for corrective action on the customer's
account. After forwarding the report, the third-party destroys the
bill received from the customer in electronic format, but collects
a summary from all reports generated by category and type of error
and utilization by a billing company, but not by individual
customer, such as a cell phone user, and stores the collection of
summaries for a predetermined time period showing the collective
errors and utilization by category for a particular billing
company, who can be advised of its collection of errors and
utilization. This invention further provides all of the error
analysis and utilization analysis of the customer's bill from a
billing company by the third-party in real-time, while the customer
is online at the third-party's website system. The third-party's
summary report generated for the customer is in a format that the
customer can forward directly to the billing company for corrective
action by the billing company on the customer's account.
2. Description of Related Art
The present invention may be useful in any situation where there
are companies, such as cell phone companies, which issue bills to
their customer's in large volumes based on published rate plans or
services. The prior art required customer's to have significant
knowledge about how the industry and/or billing company computed
their bills against the rate plans on which the customer's bill was
based to even make sense of their bills. Most customer's do not
have the knowledge or the data to make such an analysis of their
bills against the published rate plan of the billing company, nor
do they have the time to do so. Also billing companies, such as
cell phone companies, who send out large volumes of bills, have no
commercial interest in analyzing the individual bills it sends to
its customer's, because it would take too much time and money and
it would probably cut into their profit margins.
Because companies bill in mass to a large body of customer's, whose
individual bills are relatively small, there is a complete mismatch
of interest in the billings and utilization between the customer's
billed by the billing companies and the billing companies. This
mismatch of interest in the billing errors and utilization errors
between the billing companies and the customer's billed, is because
there has not been a way to electronically analyze billing errors
and utilization in real-time and provide the summary report data
individually to the customer's and collectively to the individual
billing companies, such as cell phone companies, in a cost
effective manner.
While many third-party companies in the prior art have attempted
various methods of utilizing and analyzing paper invoices, or
credit memorandum or electronic invoices or optical character
reader conversions to convert bills into electronic formats for
comparison, most have been associated with the building of a
baseline template, which analyzes the customer's account in
historical time to create a template baseline report. From this
historical data, comparisons were made against various billing
companies' plans or against the customer's plan. The results were
time delayed, however, and were a complicated analysis of the
errors and reporting the utilization to the billed customer. These
reports were as confusing as the billing company's bill to the
customer and did not provide to the customer its analysis in
real-time, nor did it provide the analysis to the billing company,
such as a cell phone company, for corrective action, which was easy
to submit.
Further, because the prior art used historical records, it meant
that records were kept over time on the customer which created a
security problem both for the customer and for their billing
company. The customer's security problem was that it was exposed to
potential hacking into the database on which their historical
baseline was being kept and the billing company was exposed to
liability for loss of the customer's personal data and billing
information.
Also most of the prior art was related to customer's being billed
by billing companies, not for individual customer's but companies
who had many individual users within the company. Therefore the
lone customer receiving their individual bill from mass billing
company mailings did not have access to a program which could be
accessed over the web to assist him in analyzing errors in billing
or utilization. Therefore these programs were too expensive, except
for companies with many users who could justify the cost of billing
analysis for billing errors and utilization reports.
The prior art was also concerned with the generation of payment
electronically and otherwise, after the bills had been analyzed and
compared against historical billing. In this prior art, after an
analysis was completed, it was then passed to an accounts payable
system which was needed to pay an invoice or recognize a credit.
Clearly, such systems were helpful to companies, but not of much
use for individuals.
Also the prior art devised complicated systems and methods, as
related to wireless telecommunication data, to receive billing
information based on a current rate plan utilizing a transceiver
specially configured to store billing information in a processor
and process the subscribers billing information to produce
organized data on a calling profile record for each
telecommunication service being used by the subscriber and then
determine the best rate plan which would be most cost-effective
based on the historical data generated. Again this approach was
useful for companies with many subscribers, but did not have
application to individual users.
As the prior art was basically configured for use by companies and
organizations, it was by design expensive and would not have
application to individual customer's bills, such as individual cell
phone customer's.
Further, the prior art systems and methods did not look for a
business method which would support some or all of the costs
required to support servicing an individually billed customer, and
still leave a viable business model for third-party company to
operate.
Much of the prior art makes attempts at providing solutions to
billing analysis were inefficient and did not provide real-time
internet or web analysis to a customer regarding its bill and then
provide him real-time solutions to correct its bill with the
billing company.
Clearly, the prior art did not address the issue of providing
collective summaries of types of errors and utilization by
individual billing company through the collection of summary
reports for all companies by billing company for a pre-determined
time to create a corrective report for a given company, such as a
cell phone company, to allow the company to initiate corrective
action based on the blind reports by its error and utilization
summaries. Nor did the prior art look for outside revenue sources
to be used in their business models and methods to help support and
create an income stream for a third-party provider based on
providing blind summary reports for companies by billing
company.
Also the prior art was totally focused on the billing company and
the billed customer in its analysis for the correction of billing
errors and utilization reporting, and did not look for outside
revenue sources to be used in their business models and methods to
help support and create an income stream from a third-party based
on promotional revenues to help support some of the costs to the
billed customer, for making the service affordable to the billed
customer.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is the object of this invention to overcome the deficiencies and
short comings of the prior art and provide a method and system
which provides rapid real-time and simplified bill analysis to
customer's of mass billing companies, such as cell phone providers,
whose bills are based on published rate plans or services, without
the customer having significant knowledge of how the industry
and/or billing company computes their bills against the rate plan
on which the customer bill is based.
It is also an object of this invention to provide methods and
systems which would allow a third-party to analyze a customer's
bill of relatively low dollar value, which have been mass billed,
for billing errors and utilization in real-time and further provide
a blind collective summary report to the individual billing
company, such as a cell phone company, based on the type billing
errors and utilization errors for a particular billing company over
a predetermined time.
A further object of this invention is eliminating the need for the
creation of a template baseline report based on a customer's
historical account data and without using paper invoices, credit
memorandum or relying upon any historical customer data to generate
a report showing the errors of billing and errors of utilization
which were billed to the customer by the billing company.
Yet another object is to create a simple format that the customer
can understand, and have it submitted in real-time while they are
online at the third-party's website system.
Yet a further object of this invention is to eliminate any
historical record keeping of the customer's bill from the billing
company to provide security to the customer and to the billing
company from exposure to potential database computer hackers,
because the individual customer data is deleted at the time the
report is generated and no historical data is kept about the
customer's bill.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a method for
analyzing errors in billing and utilization errors for individual
customer's of mass billing companies, such as cell phones
providers, without the individual customer having to have access to
a program resident on his computer but who can access a third-party
website system network to analyze the customer's billing and error
utilization at a reasonable cost per report analysis. However, it
is also an object to provide billing error analysis and utilization
analysis for customer's, who are companies of mass billing clients
such as cell phone companies, to allow them the same economical
bill error analysis and utilization analysis, at a reasonable price
without them having a program resident on their company
computers.
Also an object of this invention is to provide a simple payment
procedure for the customer to pay for his billing error and
utilization error analysis report, at the time he receives the
report in real-time over the website server system of a
third-party.
A still a further object of this invention is to provide a method
and system for using promotional and advertising material from a
third-party provider to generate income for the third-party company
providing the bill analysis and utilization analysis reports and
which provides a benefit to the customer whose bill is being
analyzed for errors and utilization and economic benefit to a
third-party, which keep costs to customer low.
Still a further object of this invention is to provide a means for
providing collective summaries of the types of error and
utilization found for an individual billing company through the
collection of summary reports taken from the individual customer's
reports of billing error and utilization error over a
pre-determined time for the creation of a corrective report for a
given company, such as a cell phone company. These corrective
reports allow the company to initiate corrective action based on
the blind summary reports of billing errors and utilization errors
and economic benefit to a third-party, which keep costs to customer
low.
Other objects, features, advantages, and applications of the
present intention will become apparent upon reading the following
detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the invention
when viewed in conjunction with the drawings and the appended
claims, even though reference is made to the invention's use in a
cell phone industry environment.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
These and other features, objects, advantages, and applications of
the present invention will become more readily apparent from the
following detailed description, which should be read in the
broadest context with the accompanying drawings, which are listed
as follows:
FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic general representation of basic steps of
this invention as it applies to generic businesses where billing
from that business can be obtained by its customer in electronic
format and the billing company has a published plan which can be
stored on a third-party computer system.
FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic general representation of the up loading
steps of FIG. 1 of a customer's electronic bill to a third-party's
website system to begin the process for error and utilization
validation.
FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic general representation of the analysis
steps of FIG. 1 of a customer's electronic bill by a third-party
for errors and utilization validation and reporting in preparation
for reporting back the results and providing security for the
customer and billing company.
FIG. 4 is another diagrammatic general representation of at least
one concept of providing the report of results of the analysis of
billing company's bill to the customer by the third-party from FIG.
1.
FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic general representation of displaying
promotional materials to the customer from FIG. 1.
FIG. 6 is a diagrammatic general representation of sending the
reports of errors and utilization of FIG. 1 to the billing company
by either third-party or customer and follow up procedures.
FIG. 7 represents one embodiment for a specific application for
cell phone customer and cell phone provider billing.
FIG. 8 represents a continuation of FIG. 7 showing billing error
reporting and promotional materials generation.
FIG. 9 represents a continuation of FIG. 7 showing utilization
reporting and the type data which can be generated for utilization
reporting.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
The following embodiments are described by way of a general
applications, which could be used for many such applications in
various types of industries where electronic bills are available
and where the industries have published billing plans available to
the public, but also a specific embodiment is shown for cell phone
customer's and cell phone provider billings based on the cell phone
published rate plans. This invention is not limited to cell phone
industry only, rather to all such applications where we're
electronic bills can be made available and the billing company
publishes a rate plan which is available to the public. Those
skilled in this art will recognize and understand that these
disclosed methods and systems could be readily adaptable for
broader applications without departing from the concept of this
invention.
In the simplest form, one of the preferred embodiments of this
invention, as shown in FIG. 1, would have the first step 100 of a
customer having a bill in an electronic format which it obtained
from his billing company, who has a published rate which is
available to the public and against which it bills its customer's.
The customer would go to a third-party's website system, which is
available to analyze bills for errors and utilization, and upload
the bill in electronic format to the third-party's website system.
Once the bill has been uploaded to the third-party website system,
the third-party's website system performs an analysis of the
customer's bill for errors and utilization relative to the billing
company's published right plan, which the third-party has
previously stored on its system for the purpose of analyzing
customer's bills. Then the third-party utilizing its website system
performs the second step 200 of analyzing the customer's bill for
errors and utilization of the customer's billing relative to the
billing company's billing plan, which is publicly available and
previously stored in the third-party on its website system. After
the analysis of errors and utilization have occurred, the third
step 300 of displaying the reports of the analyzed company's bill
to the customer who submitted the bill to the third-party company
is performed, or at least an indication is given to the customer
that the report is ready to be viewed. The customer is then
provided the report in real-time after the customer pays the
third-party for the error report and utilization report and/or the
step 400 of displaying promotional material is performed. Step 400
of displaying promotional material to the customer may be in the
form of an option which allows the customer to option in and option
out of viewing promotional materials. In some applications of this
invention they treat the customer's opting in to view the
promotional materials as payment, and the customer is presented
with the error report and utilization report after opting in. After
the report has been presented to the customer, the final step of
sending the report to the billing company for corrective action on
the customer's account step 500 is performed. As will be further
explained below, step 500 may be accomplished by the customer
sending the report to the billing company or the third-party may
send the report directly to be billing company, depending on the
industry custom and practice of whether they will accept reports
from third parties.
Referring to FIG. 2, the first step 100 of FIG. 1 may have the
further expanded step 110 by the customer first going to the
third-party's website system through their computer to the public
access point on the third-party's website system, which step 120
provides customer an account for formation and the entry of ID,
password, and creating a space to receive the customer's bill in
electronic format. Once the customer has set up their ID and
password, the next step 130 is for the transmitting of their bill
in electronic format to the third-party's website system for
analysis and the step 140 of loading the bill to the customer's
account at the third-party website system.
The analyzing of the customer's bill from step 200 of FIG. 1. is
further expanded by referring to FIG. 3 and referring to step 210
of reading the fields of data on the electronically formatted bill
supplied by the customer to their account on the third-party
website system. Once the fields of data are electronically
formatted, step 220 of arranging the fields of electronic data for
comparison against the stored billing plans of the billing
companies, is performed. The step 230 is performed for analysis of
the errors and utilization of the customer's bill against his
billing companies plan can be achieved which allows step 240 of
generating a report of the errors and utilization of the customer's
bill against the previously stored plan of his billing company to
be performed. Also running in the background on the website system
of the third-party, is step 250 Of collecting summary from the
generated reports by categories and type errors by a billing
company and then the website system proceeds to step 260 of storing
the collected summaries for a pre-determined time. It should be
appreciated by those skilled in the art, that the steps of
collecting a summary 250 and storing the collected summary 260
would be blind data not reflecting individual customer's, but only
categories of errors and utilization for each individual billing
company against its published billing plan and utilization. This
data may be used by the third-party website system operator to
provide general corrective information to billing companies about
the type errors and utilization that are occurring with that
particular billing company and it may also be used by the
third-party as an income stream to support the business model of
this invention of keeping the costs low to the individual customer
submitting their bills for analysis of errors and utilization.
Finally, the step 280 of the destroying the electronic bill
received in electronic format from the customer is taken for
providing security to the customer and his billing company, by not
having any of the customer's bill being stored for online access by
hackers into the third-party website system. It will be understood
by those skilled in the art that this means there is no historical
data stored by the third-party system about a customer and his bill
which provides great security for the customer and their billing
company.
After generating a report of errors and utilization of customer's
bill step 240, a customer who is online and on the third-party's
website system, is in substantially real-time advised that their
report has been generated. Then referring to FIG. 4 he is offered
the step 310 upon paying the third-party company for the generated
reports of errors and utilizations and he receives step 320
generated report for the errors and utilization of their bill from
the billing company.
Further the business model of this invention for keeping the cost
low to the customer's wanting correction of their bills for errors
and utilization and still provides a reasonable business model for
the third-party company, step 400 of FIG. 1, further provides step
410 of FIG. 5 of displaying an option for promotional materials to
the customer to receive the promotional materials. Not shown is the
path if the customer opts not to view the promotional materials, as
he simply skips to step 500, which will be discussed later. This
promotional material can be varied from general to targeted and as
such is valuable to the third-party and the advertiser, which helps
support the business model of keeping the cost low to customer's
seeking analysis of their billing errors and utilization. If a
customer decides to option in, step 420, to view the promotional
material, he is given the choice of having the promotional message
delivered from a group of audio, video, email, mobile devices,
and/or on screen immediately for receiving the promotional
material. The customer further is asked if they accepts the terms
and conditions of use, step 430, before proceeding to selecting the
type media to view the promotional materials, step 440, which leads
to viewing the promotional materials, step 450. As part of the
third party's business model for generating income but keeping the
cost low to the customer for their error valuation and utilization,
the next two steps provide advertisers with positive confirmation
that the customer has in fact viewed the promotional material,
because these steps are receiving the promotional code, step 460,
and entering the promotional code of the customer to receive the
promotional benefit, step 470. This means that an advertiser
supplying promotion materials has positive confirmation that the
customer has viewed advertisers promotional material.
Finally referring to FIG. 6 which further expands step 500 shown in
FIG. 1, an option is given the customer of either, step 510, having
the third-party company submit their errors and utilization report
to billing company for correction of the bill based in the
customer's name and account number or, step 520, the customer
submits the validation optimization report to the billing company
for correction. However in either case 510 or 520, the third-party
company sending the follow up email to customer reminds the
customer to confirm that the corrections submitted have been made
to the customer's account, step 530. Depending on whether 510 or
520 was selected for response, then steps 540 and 550 are followed
which respectively are submitting follow up emails either by
third-party company to the billing company for correction in the
customer's name and account number, or by submitting follow up
emails by the third-party company to the customer for the customer
to send for corrections to the billing company.
FIG. 7 contains a more detailed explanation of one embodiment of
this invention as it relates to an embodiment for a specific
application for cell phone customer's and cell phone provider
billing in which the wireless user 10 obtains a phone bill in
electronic format from their cell phone service provider, not
shown. The wireless user 10, once they have obtained the cell phone
bill in electronic format, will go to third-party website, homepage
11. The third-party website inquires, "Is this the users first time
visiting the website?" 12. Depending on the cell phone customer's
response of "Yes" or "No" he would either proceed to "User must
create an account" 13 if their answer was "Yes", and would then be
led to "store information in database" 14, where the cell phone
customer/user would enter their cell phone number, password, and
their cell phone bill. If the cell phone customer/user answered
"No" to the inquiry at 12, then they would be directed to the
option 15 which asks: "Does the user want to validate their bill or
get a utilization report". If the cell phone customer/user elects
"Go to utilization page" report option 16, he would be referred to
Link C, FIG. 9, which will be further discussed below. If the cell
phone customer/user elects validate their bill at option 15, then
they would select "User must sign in" 17. It will be understood by
those skilled in the art that there may be multiple steps
associated with a sign in procedure 17, such as validation of ID,
username, and various sub-routines to assist the cell phone
customer/user in their sign-on procedure, not shown. Then cell
phone customer/users is asked, "User must choose a bill to upload"
18 and after choosing a bill to upload proceeds to "User clicks
validate bill button to upload bill for validation" 19 to upload
the bill they chose in step 18. All the foregoing steps are
examples of one embodiment which could be generally referred to as
obtaining a cell phone bill by customer in electronic format and
uploading the cell phone bill to third-party's website system, but
as those skilled in the art would recognize other specific steps
might be used to achieve the general steps of obtaining a cell
phone bill and uploading it to the third-party website system.
Before a bill uploaded by step 19 can be fully achieved, processes
20, "Is the file an HTM or PDF file" and 21 "Is the bill from an
approved wireless carrier?" are run to determine if the
third-party's software will be able to perform the step of
analyzing the cell phone customer/users cell phone bill. If the
answer to steps 20 and 21 is "No" then the user must choose a new
bill to upload step 18 and try again. If the answer to 20 and 21 is
"Yes" the bill is passed for analysis and validation. While there
may be many ways to go about the analysis process, as those skilled
in the art would be aware, the analysis process for at least one
embodiment herein described is achieved initially with step 22
"Validate users name against name stored in database"; step 23
"Validate users mobile number" and step 24 "Verify users wireless
carrier". In this embodiment and throughout the analyzing process
fields of data are read on the electronically formatted bill and
the data fields are arranged in a pattern which can be compared
against previously stored billing plan data of a cell phone
provider, which in this embodiment being described would be the
cell phone customer/users wireless carrier verified at step 24.
Once step 24 is completed in the analysis, the process continues
by, "Extract wireless plan and standard features set then identify
any errors" step 25. Another subset of analyzing the arranged
fields of data is to compare and asked the question, "Does a bill
containing partial month charges?" step 26. If the answer is "Yes"
any analysis of data fields proceeds to "extract prorate charges
and validate the charges" step 27 so that the charges will be
prorated and not deviate the data being analyzed or give a false
comparison, then the process proceeds to step 28. If the answer to
step 26 was "No" then analysis process moved to "Calculate minutes
of use by extracting call information" step 28 and to "Extract
taxes and surcharges and calculate taxes and surcharges and
validate them" step 29, and then to "Identify any late charge fees"
step 30 and to "Identify data features" step 31, after which "Were
errors found?" step 32. If no errors were found, at least in this
embodiment, a screen displays "Show thumbs-up page" step 33 to
indicate to the cell phone customer/user that their phone bill is
correct and he would be referred to Link B, FIG. 8, which will be
further discussed below. If errors were found or the answer was
"Yes" in response to the query of step 32, then the analysis
proceeds to "Store error information in database by cell phone
carrier to be used to report to carrier" step 34, and then the
process proceeds "Delete users bill from server" step 36. It should
be further explained that this stored information in step 34 is not
individual information about the cell phone customer's/user, rather
it is generic data error which is collected by type error and by
cell phone provider and is blind information relative to the cell
phone customer/user. Therefore, this stored error data allows the
third-party to "Provide reports to carrier for a fee" step 35, and
maintain the cell phone customer/users privacy and data by error
type and particular cell phone provider of the accumulated data.
The third-party may sell this data to a cell phone provider to help
support the business model of keeping the cost low to the cell
phone customer's/user for their error information and still provide
a successful business model for the third-party provider.
If errors were found in the cell phone customer/users cell phone
bill and after running steps 34 and 36 and indication is displayed
that an errors have been found in the cell phone customer/users
cell phone bill, by displaying on the screen, "Thumbs down results
page" step 37. After displaying step 37, the cell phone
customer/user is provided the option of asking, "Does the user want
to purchase the error report?" step 38. If the answer is "No" the
cell phone customer/user is returned to the third-party website
homepage 11. If the answer is "Yes", they would be referred to Link
A, FIG. 8, where the cell phone customer/user will be ask, "Display
credit card/address page" step 39 for the entry of credit card
information to affect payment for the error report. If they answer
"No" they are fed to Link B and are fed back to a process which
asks, "Does the user want to purchase the utilization charts?" step
48. If the answer is "No," the cell phone customer/user is directed
back to third-party website homepage 11. If the answer is "Yes" he
is directed process step 39 to begin the credit card processing
steps to purchase the utilization report and processed along the
same lines as the error report. The next procedure is validation of
credit card information, "Is the information entered valid?" step
40. If the answer is "No" the cell phone customer/user is routed
back to step 39 for re-entry of credit card data. If the answer to
step 40 is "Yes" the cell phone customer/user has displayed an
option to view promotional materials.
The option to view promotional materials is offered to the cell
phone customer/user to view a promotional marketing message "Does
the user want to opt in for a video marketing message via email,
mobile or on screen?" step 41. If the answer is "Yes" the cell
phone customer/user will be asked "Does the user accept the terms
and conditions?" step 42, under which the promotional offer will be
made, and if excepting the cell phone customer/user is requested
"User selects type of message and third-party sends message with
promo code" step 43 to be used in the next step where, "Customer
views message and receives promo code and then returns to the site
and enters promo code and completes transaction" step 44 for the
cell phone customer/user to receive the benefit from having viewed
promotional message. The benefit can be anything from discounts on
products, free products, and are anything an advertiser is willing
to give as valuable benefit. The third-party company derives
additional income from advertisers to support its business model of
providing reasonable cost for cell phone customer/users to have
their bills analyzed for correction. It is important to understand
that the more reasonable the cost are to the cell phone
customer/user to have their bills corrected, the more volume a
third-party generates with their business model which generates
more advertising and is a self upward spiraling generator of this
business model. Further, the advertisers know their promotional
materials are being viewed because in step 44 the customer uses the
message and receives an additional promo code which he must enter
to complete the transaction. This positive confirmation of having
viewed this promotional material makes it exceptionally valuable to
advertisers.
After the cell phone customer/user leaves step 44 he is offered the
option "Is the user purchasing the charts or an error report and
the chart?" step 45. If the cell phone customer/user opts for
reports and charts he is passed to "Show error report and
utilization charts. To save copy or print for resolution" step 46,
is performed. If at step 45 the cell phone customer/users had opted
to see only the utilization charts, then they would have been
passed to the process "Generate and show the utilization charts"
step 47 would be performed before passing the cell phone
customer/easier to step 11 directing the cell phone customer/user
to the third-party website homepage.
If the cell phone customer/user elects above to, "Go to utilization
page" report option 16, they would have been referred to Link C,
FIG. 9, which will be described now. In this procedure, the user
must follow the procedure "User must sign in" step 50 and "User
uploads their bill" the step 51, which substantially follows the
steps in FIG. 7 at reference numerals 17, 18, and 19. Then, not
shown, analysis occurs similar to that in FIG. 7, but the results
are different in that the analysis extraction process, at least in
this embodiment, extracts "Peak minutes from bills" step 52,
"mobile to mobile minutes from bills" step 53, "Peak in calling
minutes from bills" step 54, "Night/weekend minutes from bills"
step 55, "text message totals from bills" step 56, and "Geographic
calling information" step 57. Then user must enter credit card
information step 58 and go through similar procedures from FIG. 7
steps 39, steps 40. While the promotional materials process steps
are not shown, those skilled in the art would know how to extract
the similar procedures for providing promotional option in and
option out of promotion materials as discussed above. The
third-party's website server system would "Show the graphs to the
user" at step 59, and "User can download graphs" step 60. The
graphs by general discussion, not limitation are shown as "Calls
per day graph" 61, "Calls per our grass" 62, "My money graph billed
items" 63, including such items as plan costs, surcharge, taxes
etc., "Monthly utilization grant" 64 including text message sent,
text message received, peak minutes, mobile-to-mobile minutes etc.,
"Current bill percentage graphs" 65, and "Geographic calling area
graph" 66.
From the foregoing preferred embodiments of this invention which
have been described in specific details with references to specific
disclosures and embodiments, it will be understood that there are
many variations and modifications which may be used and still be
within the spirit and scope of this invention as described in the
attached claims.
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