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 white pages and locating their name. Things have grown more complex now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.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, many numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their details from appearing. Reverse phone lookup providers have responded to these changing times to offer a very valuable service to resourceful phone users.

There are two typical functions for these services.

Finding Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your ID, or you want to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can assist in finding the name registered to the phone number of concern. Just by typing in the phone number you will be able to identify whoever is initiating those calls of concern.

People looking for such services include those who need to identify a number constantly calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they want to find a name connected to a home phone that is unlisted. Anytime you have a phone number but are uncertain who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup website can assist you.

Searching for Addresses

The other typical use is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you find the contact information connected with a certain phone number most directories will deliver other sorts of data as well, such as the address of the home phone or an 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. For instance, consider a parent needing to find a teenager who has run away or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly reveal addresses as well as 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 classmates. If you have the phone number you can get their address and easily deliver the invite without calling or tracking down other busy people.

Lookup websites can also give you a connection to other kinds of data, such as income brackets or previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of the most current location.

There will be a minor fee for any legitimate reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal situation demands accurate data it is worth the money in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this sort of information is not simple or completely free to research, pull together, and store, so distributing it as needed to consumers such as you must also come with a fee to cover such serviceable expenditures.

There more than likely will never be a public directory for cell phone numbers, and even if they were compiled most likely a lot of the numbers would be unpublished as is the case with many landline numbers today. The best way to gain access to such numbers is to put up a small charge either to do a one time number lookup or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the directory on a regular basis.