Not long ago, everyone had a standard phone in their home and locating a phone number or address was a matter of opening the yellow pages and finding their name. It is often more difficult now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unlisted.

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 stop their details from showing up. Reverse phone lookup providers have responded to these changing demands to provide a very valuable service to resourceful phone users.

There are two common uses for lookup directories.

Locating Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you want to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can help you find out the name listed to the number in question. Just by typing in the number you will be able to identify whoever is initiating the phone calls in question.

People needing such services include those who need to check up on a number often calling their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no accessible directory for cell phone numbers. Other people may use lookup directories when they need to identify a name listed to a landline that may be unpublished. Whenever you have a phone number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can assist you.

Finding Addresses

another common purpose is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you gain access to the contact information connected with a certain phone number most services will give 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 some people, but it does have its benefits in quite a few situations. For instance, consider a parent in a rush to locate a teenager who has run away or is still out long after curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly reveal addresses as well as names of places the teenager may be at that time.

More common situations may be looking for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's classmates. If you have the phone number you can access their address and mail out the invitation without calling or tracking down other busy people.

Lookup websites can also deliver access to other various types of information, like income brackets or previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of where the home or business is located.

There is a nominal price for any up to date reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation demands accurate information it is money well spent in the long run. The charge is unavoidable because this kind of information is not easy or completely free to research, compile, and protect, so dispensing it as needed to consumers such as you must also collect a fee to cover these operational costs.

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 unlisted just like many landline numbers today. The only way to gain access to such phone numbers is to put up a small fee either to do a one time phone number search or to join a lookup directory if you will need to access the service long term.