It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a number or address was a matter of opening the yellow pages and searching for their name. Things have grown more difficult now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unpublished.
Even with the invention of caller ID on most home phones, many numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their details from showing up. Reverse phone lookup directories have responded to these changing demands to offer a very valuable service to modern phone users.
There are two common uses for these directories.
Searching for Names
If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number shows on your ID, or you need to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can assist in finding the name listed to the number of concern. Just by entering the number you will have access to whoever is behind those bothersome phone calls.
People needing this service include those who need to check up on a number constantly texting their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they need to identify a name listed to a landline that is unlisted. Whenever you have a phone number but don't know who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup service can help.
Locating Addresses
The other typical function is to locate an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you find the contact information associated with a particular phone number most directories will deliver other sorts of information as well, which may include the address of the landline or an address listed to a cell phone number.
This may not be a typical need for most people, but it does have its uses in some situations. Such as a parent needing to find a teenager who has run off or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly reveal addresses as well as names of places the teenager may be at that time.
Other situations may be looking for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's peers. If you have the phone number you can find their address and get the invite in the mail without calling and tracking down other busy people.
Lookup directories can also deliver access to other sorts of data, such as income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint to the business or home's location.
There will be a small charge for any legitimate reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal life requires particular data it is worth the money in the end. The charge is necessary because this kind of information is not easy or completely free to research, compile, and store, so dispensing it as needed to people like you must also come with a fee to cover these operational expenditures.
There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled most likely many of the numbers would be unlisted just like many home phone numbers right now. The best way to get access to these phone numbers is to put up a small charge either to do a single phone number lookup or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the directory long term.