Looking for reverse phone lookup services can get confusing. You may begin with a simple internet search, believing it will quickly appear and you'll discover the information you require with minimal effort. Yet what actually appears are various paid websites which range from less than a buck for one lookup to upwards of fifteen dollars for a long term subscription.
Editing your search to indicate free reverse phone lookup brings additional pay sites hiding behind claims to be free. They sometimes allow you to enter the number without mention of a fee and give very nominal information such as the city or state, but if you want to see the important information like a name or address you will then be asked to hand over a fee.
Totally free reverse phone lookup does not exist. Providers of this data put out great measures and even money to assemble information such as unpublished landline numbers, cellular numbers, and sometimes address histories. These businesses have no use for this information other than to pass it on to consumers for a minor fee.
Where you go from here depends on how badly you really want to identify the name connected to that phone number. In the age of identity theft many people won't just access the first site they find and hand over their credit card information. Finding the most trustworthy directories is just as crucial as when you shop for tennis shoes or handbags online.
Retrieving the information you want isn't very hard, once you find a legitimate source.
There are a growing number of competing services all offering different charges and delivering different combinations of data. When you simply want to identify the person behind a strange phone number calling your home or wish to know exactly who your teenager is chatting with at all hours of the night, you may not have the time to evaluate different websites.
The quickest answer may be to go with a brand that many people have grown up with and access the web-based version of the white pages. There is a sense of legitimacy when you use a well known popular name that has been trusted for years. You can search a phone number and get the most basic information here free of charge, including whether the number is a cell phone or landline and a map pinpointing the general location if it is a home or business. You won't receive much more than that, especially if you are looking up a cell phone or a residential number that is unpublished.
Be alert at this point because there are links on these pages that promise more detailed information, like registered names and specific addresses, for a fee. These are links to different webpages, so you have left the security of the white pages website so you must verify the security of these websites just like any other. Yellow pages itself is not going to deliver much information other than a general location; you will have to search elsewhere for anything else, especially if you need to research a cell phone or unlisted number.
The most effective way to find reverse phone lookup services for basic needs is to find a proven directory with a small one time charge paid through a secure payment system. If you only need a one time lookup then it is usually not worth the charge to sign up for a long term directory. Locate one that delivers a one time search for a low price, usually just a buck or two.
Shelling out a huge charge for very limited information or being asked to secure information by sending card numbers by email or other non-secure forms are flashing signals of a scam.