Searching for reverse phone lookup services can get complicated. You may begin with a quick internet search, believing it will quickly pop up and you'll find the information you desire with minimal effort. Yet what actually appears are various paid websites which vary from under a dollar for one number search to upwards of fifteen dollars for a long term subscription.
Revising your search to indicate free reverse phone lookup brings even more pay services advertising claims to be free. They may allow you to type in the number for free and deliver very basic information such as the city or state, but in order to get the important details like a name or address you will then be requested to pay.
Absolutely free reverse phone lookup does not exist. Providers of this data put out great efforts and even money to collect information like unpublished landline numbers, cellular numbers, and even address histories. These businesses have no use for this information other than to make it available to consumers for a nominal fee.
Where you go from this point depends on how badly you really desire to find out the name registered to that phone number. In the age of identity fraud many people won't just pull up the cheapest site and enter their private information. Finding the most trustworthy directories is just as crucial as when you shop for tennis shoes or purses over the internet.
Getting the information you need isn't very hard, once you find a proven lookup directory.
There are many competitive websites all offering different fees and offering different combinations of data. When you simply need to know the name registered with a strange phone number calling your home or want to identify exactly who your teenager is chatting with in the middle of the night, you may not have the time to evaluate different directories.
The most effective answer may be to go with a name that many people have grown up with and use the online version of the white pages. There is a sense of security when you use a common household name that has been around for years. You can look up a phone number and get very basic information here for free, including if the number is a cell phone or home line and a map indicating the general location of a home or business. You won't get much beyond that, especially if you are researching a cell phone or a landline that is unpublished.
Be aware at this point because there are links from these pages that promise more information, including names and specific addresses, for a fee. These links lead to other webpages, so you no longer necessarily have the security of the white pages website so you need to verify the legitimacy of these websites just like any other. White pages itself is not going to give you much information other than a general location; you will need to look elsewhere for anything else, especially if you wish to know about a cell phone or unpublished number.
The easiest way to find reverse phone lookup websites for basic information is to go to a proven service with a small one time fee paid 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. Find one that provides a one time search for a small price, often just a dollar or two.
Shelling out a huge charge for very limited information or being asked to pay by delivering personal information by email or other non-secure forms are clear signs of a scam.