Telephone calling card and service

A system and method of providing a telephone calling card service including the steps of providing a user with an access number to a telephone network and a personal identification code, prompting the user to input a personal identification code to initiate automatic dialing of at least one pre-selected telephone number associated with the personal identification code, and determining whether a call has been successfully completed to a called party via the pre-selected telephone number. The system may continue dialing pre-selected telephone numbers until a call has been successfully connected. In the alternative, the system may automatically and simultaneously dial all of the pre-selected phone numbers. An arrangement for determining whether an answering machine has answered a call is also provided. To implement the method, a telephone communications apparatus is used including a structure for recording a series of telephone numbers associated with a personal identification code, and a structure for retrieving the telephone numbers associated with the code and automatically dialing the telephone numbers until a call has been successfully completed to an individual.