Looking for reverse phone lookup services can get confusing. You may start out with a quick internet search, believing it will automatically appear and you'll find the information you require with minimal work. Yet what actually comes up is a long list of paid websites which range from less than a buck for one number search to over fifteen dollars for a service subscription.
Editing your search to specify free reverse phone lookup brings additional pay sites hiding behind claims to be free. They may allow you to enter the number for free and give very useless information such as the city and state, but in order to see the useful details such as a name or address you will then be prompted to pay.
Absolutely free reverse phone lookup is not possible at this point. Providers of this information put out great measures and even money to collect information including unlisted landline numbers, cellular numbers, and even address histories. They have no purpose to collect this information other than to pass it on to buyers for a nominal charge.
whether you move forward from here depends on how much you really want to find out the person behind that phone number. In the age of identity theft most people won't just access the cheapest site and reveal their personal information. Finding the most trustworthy sites is just as necessary as when you purchase tennis shoes or pocketbooks online.
Finding the information you want isn't very hard, once you access a legitimate service.
There are a growing number of competitive services all offering different charges and delivering different combinations of information. When you simply need to determine the name registered with a strange phone number calling your home or need to know exactly who your child is talking with in the middle of the night, you probably don't have the time to compare different services.
The most effective solution may be to go with a name that many of us have grown up with and access the web-based version of the yellow pages. There is a sense of security with a common popular name that has been trusted for years. You can look up a phone number and get very basic information here without a fee, 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 receive much beyond that, especially if you are researching a cell phone or a landline that is unlisted.
Be aware at this point because there will be links from these pages that will deliver more detailed information, like registered names and desired addresses, for a fee. These links go to other webpages, so you have left the familiarity of the white pages website so you need to check the security of these websites just as with any other. Yellow 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 want to know about a cell phone or unlisted number.
The most effective way to find reverse phone lookup websites for basic needs is to find a proven directory with a small one time fee collected through a secure payment system. If you only need a one time lookup then it is usually not worth the money to sign up for a unlimited service. Locate one that delivers a one time search for a small price, often just a dollar or two.
Forking over a large charge for small amounts of information or being asked to pay by sending financial information through email or other non-secure methods are clear warnings of a scam.