Looking for reverse phone lookup directories can get confusing. You may begin with a simple Google search, hoping it will quickly pop up and you'll find the information you require with very little work. Yet what actually comes up are various paid directories which range from less than a buck for one lookup to upwards of fifteen dollars for a service subscription.
Editing your search to include free reverse phone lookup brings additional pay directories advertising claims that they are completely free. They sometimes allow you to type in the number without mention of a fee and deliver very useless information such as the city and state, but if you need to obtain the useful details such as a name or address you will then be asked to pay.
Completely free reverse phone lookup is not possible at this point. Providers of this data go to great measures and even money to collect information like unpublished home phone numbers, cell phone numbers, and sometimes address histories. They have no purpose to collect this information other than to deliver it to consumers for a nominal charge.
how you proceed from here depends on how much you really want to identify the person connected to that phone number. In the age of identity theft many people won't just access the cheapest site and enter their credit card information. Finding the most reputable directories is just as important as when you purchase clothing or handbags through the web.
Finding the information you desire isn't very hard, once you locate a legitimate lookup directory.
There are many competing services all with different prices and offering different combinations of data. When you only need to know the person registered with a strange number calling your home or wish to determine exactly who your teenager is talking with in the middle of the night, you may not have the time to rate different services.
The easiest solution may be to go with a name that many people have grown up with and use the online version of the yellow pages. There is a sense of safety when you use a well known household name that has been trusted 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 landline and a map pinpointing the general location of a home or business. You won't find much more than that, especially if you are searching a cell phone or a home phone number that is unpublished.
Be aware at this point because there are links on these pages that offer more information, such as registered names and desired addresses, for a fee. These links lead to different sites, so you no longer necessarily have the security of the yellow pages website so you must verify the security of these services just as with any other. Yellow pages itself is not going to deliver much information besides a general location; you will have to search elsewhere for anything else, especially if you need to know about a cell phone or unlisted number.
The easiest way to find reverse phone lookup websites for basic information is to find a trustworthy directory with a reasonable one time fee collected through a secure payment system. If you just want a one time number search then it is probably not worth the charge to sign up for a unlimited service. Look for one that provides a single search for a small price, often just a buck or two.
Paying a high charge for small amounts of information or being asked to secure information by delivering card numbers through email or other non-secure forms are obvious signals of a scam.