Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and finding a number or address was a matter of opening the white pages and locating the name. This has become more difficult now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unlisted.

Even with the development of caller ID on most home phones, a lot of numbers may show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to stop their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup providers have responded to these changing demands to offer a very valuable service to resourceful phone users.

There are two typical uses for these services.

Searching for Names

If you are getting calls from someone and only a number shows on your caller ID, or you need to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can help you find out the name registered to the number of concern. Just by typing in the phone number you will be able to identify whoever is behind those bothersome phone calls.

People looking for lookup directories include those wanting to identify a number frequently calling their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Other people may use this when they need to find a name listed to a landline that may be unlisted. If you have a phone number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup directory can deliver the information.

Locating Addresses

another common function is to locate an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you gain access to the contact information associated with a certain phone number most directories will give other sorts of information as well, such as the address of the home phone or an address listed to a cell phone number.

This may not be an everyday need for some people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. Such as a parent desperate to find a teenager who has run away or has not returned home long after curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly tell them addresses as well as names of locations the teenager may be located.

More common situations may be looking for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's friends. If you have their phone number you can get their address and get the invite in the mail without calling or tracking down other busy people.

Lookup directories can also deliver a connection to other kinds of information, like income brackets and address histories, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of where the home or business is located.

There will be a small charge for any relevant reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal life requires certain information it is money well spent in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this kind of information is not simple or completely free to research, compile, and save, so issuing it on demand to consumers like you must also collect a fee to cover these working expenditures.

There more than likely will never be a public directory for cell phone numbers, and even if they were compiled most likely many of the numbers would be unpublished as is the case with many landline numbers today. The only way to obtain access to such numbers is to put up a small fee either to complete a single phone number lookup or to join a lookup service if you will be using the service on a regular basis.