It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a number or address simply required opening the white pages and locating the name. Things have grown 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now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unpublished.
Even with the invention of caller ID on most home phones, a lot of numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their details from showing up. Reverse phone lookup providers have stepped up to these changing demands to provide a very useful service to modern phone users.
There are two common functions for lookup directories.
Searching for Names
If you are getting calls from someone and only a number comes up on your ID, or you need to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name listed to the number in question. Just by entering the number you will have access to whoever is responsible for those phone calls in question.
People looking for lookup directories include those wanting to check up on a number constantly phoning their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no accessible directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use lookup directories when they want to know a name connected to a landline that may be unlisted. If you have a number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can deliver the information.
Searching for Addresses
The other typical function is to locate an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you gain access to the information linked with a specific phone number most services will give additional information as well, such as the address of an home phone or an address listed to 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 desperate to track down a teenager who has run away 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 as well as names of locations the child may be located.
Other circumstances may be looking for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's classmates. If you have a phone number you can access their address and mail out the invitation without calling and tracking down other busy family.
These services can also give you access to other various types of data, including income brackets and address histories, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint of the most current location.
There will be a nominal price for any relevant reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal life requires certain data it is worth the money in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this sort of information is not easy or free to research, collect, and protect, so dispensing it immediately to consumers like you must also collect a charge to cover such working costs.
There likely will never be a phone book for cellular numbers, and even if there were most likely many of the numbers would be unlisted just like many landline numbers today. The best way to get access to these numbers is to pay a small fee either to complete a single phone number search or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the directory on a regular basis.