Looking for reverse phone lookup services can become confusing. You may begin with a quick Google search, assuming it will immediately appear and you'll have the information you require with very little work. Yet what actually appears are various paid services which vary from less than a buck for one lookup to upwards of fifteen dollars for a long term subscription.
Changing your search to specify free reverse phone lookup reveals even more pay directories sneaking in claims to be free. They sometimes allow you to enter the number free of charge and give very nominal information such as the city or state, but if you need to obtain the important information like a name or address you will then be requested to hand over a fee.
Absolutely free reverse phone lookup is not possible at this point. Providers of this data put out great efforts and sometimes money to compile information such as unlisted home phone numbers, cellular numbers, and even address histories. They have no use for this information other than to pass it on to you for a small fee.
Where you go from this point depends on how badly you really want to find out the person behind that phone number. In the age of identity theft many people won't just pick the cheapest site and reveal their personal information. Finding the most trustworthy directories is just as important as when you buy tennis shoes or purses online.
Finding the information you want isn't very difficult, once you locate a legitimate service.
There are a growing number of competitive websites all with different fees and offering different combinations of information. When you only want to determine the name registered with a particular phone number calling your home or want to identify exactly who your child is talking with at all hours of the night, you probably don't have the patience to evaluate different directories.
The most effective solution may be to go with a brand that many people have grown up with and access the online version of the yellow pages. There is a sense of safety when you use a common popular name that has been around for years. You can look up a phone number and get very basic information here free of charge, including if the number is a cell phone or residential line and a map pinpointing the general location of a home or business. You won't find much more than that, especially if you are researching a cell phone or a landline that is unpublished.
Be careful at this point because there will be links on these pages that promise more information, such as names and specific addresses, for a fee. These links go to different webpages, so you no longer necessarily have the familiarity of the yellow pages website so you need to ensure the reputation of these databases just like any other. Yellow pages itself is not going to give you much information other than a general location; you will have to search elsewhere for anything else, especially if you wish to know about a cell phone or unlisted number.
The easiest way to access reverse phone lookup websites for basic information is to go to a proven database with a nominal one time charge collected through a secure payment system. If you only need a one time lookup then it is obviously not worth the money to commit to a unlimited directory. Look for one that delivers a single lookup for a small fee, usually just a dollar or two.
Forking over a huge charge for very limited information or being asked to pay by sending personal information through email or other non-secure methods are flashing warnings of a scam.