Searching for reverse phone lookup services can get confusing. You may begin with a quick internet search, assuming it will automatically appear and you'll discover the information you require with minimal work. Yet what actually appears are various paid services which vary from under a dollar for one number search to over fifteen dollars for a service subscription.
Revising your search to specify free reverse phone lookup brings additional pay sites hiding behind claims to be free. They sometimes allow you to enter the number free of charge and award you with very useless information such as the city or state, but if you need to get the more substantial information like a name or address you will once again be asked to pay.
Absolutely free reverse phone lookup does not exist. Providers of this information go to great measures and sometimes money to compile information including unlisted home phone numbers, cell phone numbers, and sometimes address histories. They have no purpose to collect this information other than to pass it on to you for a small fee.
Where you go from this point depends on how much you really want to find out the name registered to that phone number. In the age of identity theft most people won't just pull up the cheapest site and hand over their credit card information. Finding the most trustworthy sites is just as crucial as when you buy tennis shoes or purses through the web.
Getting the information you want isn't very hard, once you access a reputable service.
There are a growing number of competitive directories all with different fees and delivering different combinations of data. When you simply want to identify the person registered with a strange phone number calling your home or want to identify exactly who your teenager is chatting with at all hours of the night, you probably don't have the time to rate different services.
The most effective solution may be to go with a brand that many people have grown up with and use the web-based version of the white pages. There is a sense of security with a well known household name that has been used for years. You can search a phone number and get the most basic information here without paying, including whether the number is a cell phone or residential line and a map pinpointing the general location if it is a home or business. You won't get much beyond that, especially if you are researching a cell phone or a landline that is unpublished.
Be alert at this point because there are links on these pages that promise more information, such as registered names and specific addresses, for a fee. These are links to other sites, so you have left the security of the yellow pages website so you should verify the reputation of these services just like any other. White pages itself is not going to reveal much information besides a general location; you will have to search elsewhere for anything else, especially if you wish to research a cell phone or unlisted number.
The easiest way to find reverse phone lookup websites for basic needs is to find a trustworthy service with a reasonable one time fee paid through a secure payment system. If you just want a one time number search then it is probably not worth the fee to sign up for a long term service. Locate one that provides a one time search for a low fee, usually just a buck or two.
Paying a large fee for very limited information or being asked to pay by sending personal information by email or other non-secure methods are obvious warnings of a scam.