Conferencing with a calling party

A method and apparatusprovides three way conferencing which allows a third party caller to call into an existing telephone call at a single line of a called party's telephone. In one embodiment, the called party may accept the conferencing of the third party caller based on a review of received call related information, e.g., Caller ID information. The acceptance may be by flashes of the telephone line and/or by entry of a predetermined DTMF code. The telephone apparatus and/or the central office may maintain a directory of accepted third party callers which are allowed to automatically enter an existing telephone call at a called party, unless refused by the called party within a predetermined amount of time. Each entry in the directory of accepted third party callers contains a portion or all of call related information such as a telephone number and/or a household name.