Looking for reverse phone lookup services can get confusing. You may start out with a quick Google search, hoping it will immediately pop up and you'll have the information you require with minimal work. Yet what actually comes up is a series of paid directories which range from under a dollar for one lookup to over fifteen dollars for a long term subscription.
Revising your search to include free reverse phone lookup reveals additional pay services hiding behind claims to be free. They sometimes allow you to enter the number free of charge and deliver very nominal information such as the city or state, but in order to see the important details such as a name or address you will then be asked to pay.
Absolutely free reverse phone lookup does not exist. Providers of this data go to great measures and sometimes money to assemble information like unpublished residential numbers, cell phone numbers, and sometimes address histories. These businesses have no purpose to collect this information other than to deliver it to buyers for a minor charge.
whether you move forward from this point depends on how much you really need to identify the name registered to that phone number. In the age of identity fraud most people won't just pick the cheapest site and hand over their private information. Finding the most trustworthy directories is just as crucial as when you shop for clothing or pocketbooks online.
Retrieving the information you want isn't very difficult, once you access a proven source.
There are a growing number of competing directories all offering different fees and delivering different combinations of information. When you only need to determine the name behind a strange phone number calling your home or want to know exactly who your teenager is talking with at all hours of the night, you probably don't have the patience to rate different services.
The quickest solution may be to go with a name that many of us have grown up with and access the online version of the yellow pages. There is a sense of legitimacy with a common household name that has been around for years. You can look up a phone number and get very basic information here without a fee, including if the number is a cell phone or home 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 researching a cell phone or a landline that is unlisted.
Be aware at this point because there are links from these pages that promise more detailed information, like names and specific addresses, for a charge. These links lead to different webpages, so you no longer necessarily have the familiarity of the yellow pages website so you need to check the security of these services just as you would with any other. Yellow pages itself is not going to give you much information other than a general location; you will have to look elsewhere for anything else, especially if you wish to know about a cell phone or unlisted number.
The best way to access reverse phone lookup services for basic needs is to go to a trustworthy service with a nominal one time fee paid with a secure payment system. If you just want a one time number search then it is usually not worth the money to commit to a more detailed directory. Locate one that offers a single search for a minor fee, usually just a dollar or two.
Forking over a huge fee for very limited information or being asked to secure information by sending personal information through email or other non-secure methods are clear signs of a scam.