It used to be that everyone had a standard phone in their home and finding a phone number or address was a matter of opening the white pages and searching for the name. Things have grown 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now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.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, many numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from coming up. Reverse phone lookup services have stepped up to these changing demands to offer a very useful service to resourceful phone users.
There are two typical uses for these services.
Searching for Names
If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your ID, or you want to figure out cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can assist in finding the name listed to the number of concern. Just by typing in the phone number you will be able to identify whoever is initiating the bothersome phone calls.
People in search of this service include those wanting to check up on 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 Other people may use lookup directories when they want to know a name connected to a home phone that may be unpublished. Whenever you have a number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup directory can help.
Searching for Addresses
The other typical use is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you plug into the contact information associated with a specific number most services will give other sorts of data as well, which includes the address of an landline or an address listed to a cell phone number.
This may not be a typical need for some people, but it does have its benefits in some situations. For instance, consider a parent needing to track down a teenager who has run off or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a reverse phone lookup 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 their phone number you can get their address and mail out the invitation without calling and tracking down other busy family.
These services can also deliver a connection to other various types of information, such as income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of the most current location.
There is a minor fee for any up to date reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal life demands accurate data it is money well spent in the end. The charge is unavoidable because this sort of information is not simple or free to research, pull together, and store, so distributing it immediately to others such as you must also collect a charge to account for such operational costs.
There more than likely will never be a phone book for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable many of the numbers would be unpublished as is the case with many landline numbers today. The only way to gain access to these phone numbers is to pay a nominal fee either to complete a one time phone number search or to join a lookup directory if you will need to access the service long term.