Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a number or address was a matter of opening the white pages and locating the name. This has become more complicated now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.
Even with the invention of caller ID on most home phones, a lot of numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup services have stepped up to these changing times to provide a very valuable service to resourceful phone users.
There are two typical functions for these services.
Searching for Names
If you are getting calls from someone and only a number comes up on your caller ID, or you need to figure out cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can help you find out the name registered to the number in question. Just by typing in the number you will be able to identify the person who is behind the phone calls in question.
People needing lookup directories include those wanting to identify a number constantly texting their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they want to find a name connected to a landline that is unlisted. Whenever you have a phone number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can assist you.
Searching for Addresses
another common use is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you find the contact information associated with a certain number most directories will deliver additional information as well, such as the address of the landline or the address listed to a cell phone number.
This may not be a common need for some people, but it does have its benefits in quite a few situations. For instance, consider a parent needing to find a teenager who has run away or is still out long after curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly uncover addresses and names of places the teenager may be at that time.
More common circumstances may be searching for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's classmates. If you have a phone number you can access their address and get the invite in the mail without calling and tracking down other busy people.
These services can also give you access to other various types of information, including income brackets or previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint to the business or home's location.
There will be a minor fee for any relevant reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal life demands accurate data it is money well spent in the long run. The charge is unavoidable because this sort of information is not simple or completely free to research, compile, and store, so issuing it on demand to people like you must also include a fee to account for these working costs.
There more than likely will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled most likely a lot of the numbers would be unlisted just like many home phone numbers today. The only way to gain access to these phone numbers is to put up a minor fee either to do a single number lookup or to join a lookup directory if you will be using the directory on a regular basis.