It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a number or address was a matter of 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 home phones, and if they do their number may be unlisted.

Even with the invention of caller ID on most home phones, a lot of numbers may show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their details from appearing. Reverse phone lookup directories have responded to these changing demands to offer a very useful 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 want to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name listed to the number in question. Just by entering the phone number you will have access to the person who is behind those calls of concern.

People looking for this service include those who need to identify a number frequently texting their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Other people may use this when they want to find a name listed to a landline that is unlisted. Whenever you have a phone number but aren't sure who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup directory can deliver the information.

Finding Addresses

another common purpose is to identify an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you plug into the contact information associated with a particular number most directories will give other sorts of information as well, which may include the address of the landline or an address associated with a cell phone number.

This may not be a typical need for most people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. For example, take a parent desperate to track down a teenager who has run off or is still out well past curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly tell them addresses and names of locations the teenager may be at that time.

More common circumstances may be searching for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's classmates. If you have a phone number you can get their address and get the invite in the mail without calling or tracking down other busy people.

These services can also give you access to other kinds of information, such as income brackets or address histories, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint to the business or home's location.

There is a nominal price for any up to date reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal situation requires particular information it is money well spent in the end. The fee is necessary because this variety of information is not easy or free to research, collect, and store, so distributing it as needed to consumers like you must also come with a fee to account for such serviceable costs.

There likely will never be a phone book for cell phone numbers, and even if there were it is probable a lot of the numbers would be unpublished just like many landline numbers right now. The only way to obtain access to these numbers is to put up a nominal charge either to complete a one time phone number search or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the service on a regular basis.