Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a phone number or address simply required opening the phone book and locating their name. Things have grown more complex 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 widespread use of caller ID on most landlines, many numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from showing up. Reverse phone lookup services have stepped up to these changing times to provide a very useful service to resourceful phone users.

There are two common functions for these services.

Locating Names

If you are getting calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your ID, or you need to figure out cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can assist in finding the name registered to the phone number in question. Just by entering the phone number you will have access to whoever is initiating those phone calls in question.

People needing this service include those who need to check up on a number constantly calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they need to know a name connected to a landline that may be unlisted. If you have a number but aren't sure who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup website can help.

Finding Addresses

another typical function is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you find the information connected with a specific phone number most services will give additional information as well, which may include the address of an landline or the address associated with 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. For example, take a parent in a rush to locate a teenager who has run away or is still out well past curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly reveal addresses as well as names of locations the child may be located.

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

Lookup directories can also give you a connection to other sorts of information, including income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint of where the home or business is located.

There is a minor fee for any up to date reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal situation requires certain information it is more than worth the payoff in the long run. The fee is necessary because this sort of information is not easy or completely free to research, pull together, and save, so distributing it as needed to people such as you must also collect a fee to make up for such operational expenditures.

There probably will never be a phone book for cell phone numbers, and even if there were most likely many of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many landline numbers right now. The best way to get access to such numbers is to pay a minor fee either to do a single phone number search or to join a lookup directory if you will need to access the directory long term.