Looking for reverse phone lookup directories can become complicated. You may begin with a quick internet search, assuming it will immediately pop up and you'll have the information you need with minimal effort. Yet what actually appears is a series of paid directories which vary from under a dollar for one lookup to upwards of fifteen dollars for a long term subscription.
Revising your search to indicate free reverse phone lookup reveals additional pay services advertising claims that they are completely free. They may allow you to enter the number for free and deliver very nominal information such as the city or state, but if you want to get the important information such as a name or address you will once again be prompted to pay.
Absolutely free reverse phone lookup is not possible at this point. Providers of this information go to great efforts and sometimes money to assemble information such as unlisted home phone numbers, cellular numbers, and sometimes address histories. They have no use for this information other than to deliver it to buyers for a small fee.
how you proceed from here depends on how much you really want to identify the name behind that phone number. In the age of identity fraud many people won't just pull up the first site they find and reveal their private information. Finding the most trustworthy services is just as crucial as when you buy tennis shoes or handbags over the internet.
Finding the information you want isn't very hard, once you locate a legitimate source.
There are many competing services all with different charges and offering different combinations of information. When you only need to identify the person registered with a particular number calling your home or want to determine exactly who your child is talking with at all hours of the night, you probably don't have the desire to rate different services.
The quickest answer may be to go with a brand that many of us have grown up with and access the web-based version of the yellow pages. There is a sense of legitimacy with a well known popular name that has been trusted for years. You can look up a phone number and get the most basic information here free of charge, including if the number is a cell phone or home line and a map pinpointing the general location of a home or business. You won't get much more than that, especially if you are researching a cell phone or a residential number that is unlisted.
Be careful at this point because there are links from these pages that will deliver more detailed information, such as names and desired addresses, for a charge. These links lead to different sites, so you have left the security of the white pages website so you need to ensure the reputation of these websites just as with any other. White pages itself is not going to reveal much information besides a general location; you will need to look elsewhere for more, especially if you wish to research a cell phone or unpublished number.
The easiest way to find reverse phone lookup services for basic information is to go to a proven service with a nominal one time charge collected through a secure payment system. If you just want a one time lookup then it is probably not worth the money to commit to a long term directory. Find one that offers a one time lookup for a low fee, often just a buck or two.
Shelling out a large fee for small amounts of information or being asked to pay by delivering card numbers by email or other non-secure forms are flashing signs of a scam.