Looking for reverse phone lookup services can get complicated. You may begin with a simple internet search, hoping it will quickly appear and you'll have the information you need with minimal effort. Yet what actually appears is a long list of paid directories which vary from under a dollar for one lookup to over fifteen dollars for a long term subscription.
Editing your search to specify free reverse phone lookup reveals even more pay directories sneaking in claims that they are completely free. They may allow you to type in the number for free and give very nominal information such as the city and state, but if you need to get the important details such as a name or address you will once again be asked to hand over a fee.
Totally free reverse phone lookup does not exist. Providers of this data go to great efforts and even money to assemble information like unpublished residential numbers, cellular numbers, and even address histories. They have no use for this information other than to deliver it to buyers for a minor fee.
how you proceed from here depends on how badly you really need to reveal the person behind that phone number. In the age of identity fraud most people won't just pull up the first site they find and enter their credit card information. Finding the most trustworthy directories is just as crucial as when you purchase tennis shoes or purses through the web.
Getting the information you want isn't very difficult, once you locate a reputable source.
There are many competing websites all with different prices and delivering different combinations of data. When you only need to identify the name connected to a particular phone number calling your home or need to know exactly who your teenager is talking with in the middle of the night, you may not have the patience to evaluate different services.
The most effective answer may be to go with a name that many of us have grown up with and access the online version of the white 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 very basic information here free of charge, including whether the number is a cell phone or residential line and a map indicating the general location if it is a home or business. You won't receive much beyond that, especially if you are looking up a cell phone or a home phone number that is unpublished.
Be careful at this point because there are links from these pages that promise additional information, like names and residential addresses, for a charge. These are links to other webpages, so you no longer necessarily have the security of the white pages website so you should check the security of these databases just like any other. White pages itself is not going to deliver much information other than a general location; you will need to look elsewhere for more, especially if you need to know about a cell phone or unpublished number.
The best way to find reverse phone lookup websites for basic needs is to go to a reputable service with a nominal one time fee paid with a secure payment system. If you just want a one time lookup then it is obviously not worth the fee to commit to a more detailed service. Locate one that delivers a one time lookup for a low fee, usually just a dollar or two.
Paying a huge charge for very limited information or being asked to secure information by sending card numbers through email or other non-secure forms are obvious warnings of a scam.