It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a phone number or address simply required opening the white pages and finding their name. This has become more complicated now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unpublished.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 appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their details from coming up. Reverse phone lookup providers have stepped up to these changing demands to provide a very valuable service to resourceful phone users.

There are two common uses for these directories.

Locating Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number comes up on your ID, or you need to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can assist in finding the name registered to the phone number in question. Just by typing in the number you will have access to the person who is responsible for the bothersome phone calls.

People in search of such services include those wanting to identify a number frequently phoning their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no accessible directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they need to know a name connected to a landline that is unpublished. If you have a phone number but don't know who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup website can deliver the information.

Locating Addresses

The other typical purpose is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you gain access to the information connected with a certain number most services will deliver additional data as well, such as the address of an 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. For instance, consider a parent needing to track down a teenager who has run away or is still out well past curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly tell them addresses as well as names of places the child may be at that time.

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

Lookup websites can also deliver access to other sorts of information, such as income brackets and address histories, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint of where the home or business is located.

There is a nominal price for any relevant reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal situation demands certain data it is worth the money in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this variety of information is not easy or free to research, compile, and store, so issuing it as needed to consumers like you must also include a charge to cover these operational expenditures.

There more than likely will never be a public directory for cell phone numbers, and even if they were compiled most likely the majority of the numbers would be unpublished just like many home phone numbers right now. The only way to obtain access to these numbers is to put up a minor charge either to do a single phone number lookup or to join a lookup service if you will be using the service long term.