It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a phone number or address was a matter of opening the yellow pages and searching for the name. Things have grown more complicated 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 landlines, many numbers may come up 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 typical uses for these services.

Searching for Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your ID, or you need to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can assist in finding the name listed to the phone number of concern. Just by entering the number you will have access to the person who is initiating the calls of concern.

People looking for such services include those who need to check up on a number often calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Other people may use lookup directories when they need to find a name connected to a landline that is unpublished. If you have a number but aren't sure who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can assist you.

Locating Addresses

another typical use is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you plug into the information connected with a specific phone number most services will give other sorts of information as well, which includes the address of the home phone or the address listed to a cell phone number.

This may not be a common need for most people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. For example, take a parent in a rush to find a teenager who has run away or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly tell them addresses and names of locations the child may be located.

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

These services can also deliver a connection to other kinds of data, like income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint to the business or home's location.

There will be a small charge for any relevant reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal life demands particular data it is worth the money in the long run. The charge is required because this sort of information is not simple or free to research, pull together, and store, so dispensing it on demand to people such as you must also collect a fee to cover these operational expenditures.

There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled most likely many of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many landline numbers today. The best way to get access to these phone numbers is to put up a nominal fee either to complete a single number search or to join a lookup directory if you will need to access the service long term.