Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a number or address simply required opening the phone book and finding their name. Things have grown more difficult now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unpublished.

Even with the widespread use of caller ID on most home phones, some numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup providers have responded to these changing demands to offer a very valuable service to modern phone users.

There are two common uses for lookup directories.

Finding Names

If you are getting calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you need to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can help you find out the name registered to the phone number of concern. Just by entering the phone number you will be able to identify whoever is responsible for those phone calls in question.

People needing this service include those wanting to check up on a number frequently phoning 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 identify a name registered to a landline that is unlisted. Anytime you have a number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can assist you.

Finding Addresses

another typical function is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you gain access to the contact information linked with a specific number most directories will give additional information as well, such as the address of an home phone or an address associated with a cell phone number.

This may not be a common need for some 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 long after curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly tell them addresses as well as names of locations the child may be at that time.

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

These services can also give you access to other various types of data, like income brackets or 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 relevant reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal life demands particular data it is worth the money in the end. The fee is necessary because this kind of information is not easy or completely free to research, collect, and save, so dispensing it as needed to people such as you must also include a fee to make up for such working expenditures.

There more than likely will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if there were most likely the majority of the numbers would be unlisted just like many home phone numbers right now. The only way to get access to these phone numbers is to give a small charge either to do a single number lookup or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the directory long term.