Not long ago, everyone had a standard phone in their home and finding a phone number or address simply required opening the yellow pages and locating their name. This has become more complex now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unlisted.
Even with the invention of caller ID on most home phones, some numbers may show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to stop their name from showing up. Reverse phone lookup providers have responded to these changing times to offer a very valuable service to modern phone users.
There are two typical functions for these directories.
Locating Names
If you are getting calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your ID, or you need to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name registered to the number of concern. Just by typing in the number you will be able to identify the person who is behind the calls of concern.
People in search of such services include those who need to identify a number often 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 Others may use this when they want to find a name listed to a home phone that is unpublished. Whenever you have a number but are uncertain who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup website can assist you.
Searching for Addresses
The other common function is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you gain access to the information associated with a particular phone number most services will deliver other sorts of information as well, which may include the address of an landline or an address listed to a cell phone number.
This may not be an everyday need for most people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. Such as a parent in a rush to locate a teenager who has run away or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly tell them addresses and 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 classmates. If you have their phone number you can find their address and easily deliver the invite without calling and tracking down other busy family.
Lookup websites can also give you a connection to other kinds of information, including income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of the most current location.
There will be a nominal price for any up to date reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal situation requires particular data it is more than worth the payoff in the end. The fee is unavoidable because this kind of information is not easy or free to research, compile, and protect, so issuing it immediately to others such as you must also collect a charge to account for such serviceable costs.
There more than likely will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if there were it is probable the majority of the numbers would be unpublished just like many home phone numbers today. The only way to gain access to such numbers is to pay a small fee either to do a single phone number lookup or to join a lookup service if you will be using the directory on a regular basis.