Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a phone number or address simply required opening the white pages and finding the name. It is often more complicated now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.
Even with the development of caller ID on most landlines, some numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup directories have responded to these changing times to offer a very useful service to resourceful phone users.
There are two typical uses for lookup services.
Searching for Names
If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you need to figure out cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can assist in finding the name listed to the phone number of concern. Just by typing in the number you will have access to whoever is initiating those calls of concern.
People needing such services include those who need to check up on a number often phoning their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Other people may use lookup directories when they need to know a name registered to a home phone that may be unlisted. Whenever you have a number but don't know who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup website can assist you.
Locating Addresses
The other common function is to locate an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you find the information associated with a particular phone number most directories will give additional data as well, which includes the address of the landline or the address connected to a cell phone number.
This may not be an everyday need for most people, but it does have its benefits in some situations. Such as a parent needing to track down a teenager who has run away or is still out well past curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly uncover addresses as well as names of locations the child may be at that time.
Other circumstances may be looking for addresses to mail 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 and tracking down other busy parents.
Lookup websites can also deliver a connection to other various types of information, like 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 service, but if your business or personal life demands certain data it is money well spent in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this variety of information is not easy or free to research, collect, and protect, so distributing it on demand to people like you must also include a fee to cover such serviceable costs.
There more than likely will never be a public directory for cell phone numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable many of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many landline numbers right now. The only way to obtain access to such phone numbers is to give a minor fee either to complete a one time number search or to join a lookup service if you will be using the service long term.