Not long ago, everyone had a standard phone in their home and searching for a phone number or address was a matter of opening the yellow pages and searching for their name. It is often more complex 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 development of caller ID on most landlines, many numbers may show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup services have responded to these changing times to provide a very useful service to resourceful phone users.
There are two typical uses for these directories.
Locating Names
If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you need to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name listed to the phone number of concern. Just by entering the phone number you will be able to identify the person who is behind the calls of concern.
People in search of such services include those wanting to check up on a number constantly texting their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use lookup directories when they need to find a name listed to a home phone that is unpublished. Whenever you have a number but aren't sure who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can help.
Searching for Addresses
another typical purpose is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you gain access to the information linked with a certain phone number most services will give other sorts of data as well, which may include the address of the home phone or the address connected to 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 instance, consider a parent in a rush to track down a teenager who has run away or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly uncover addresses and names of places the teenager may be located.
Other circumstances may be searching for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's friends. If you have the phone number you can get their address and mail out the invitation without calling and tracking down other busy people.
Lookup directories can also give you a connection to other various types of information, including income brackets and address histories, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of where the home or business is located.
There will be a minor fee for any legitimate reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation demands accurate information it is more than worth the payoff in the long run. The charge is necessary because this variety of information is not simple or free to research, collect, and store, so dispensing it immediately to others like you must also collect a fee to cover these operational costs.
There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if there were it is probable the majority of the numbers would be unpublished as is the case with many landline numbers right now. The best way to get access to such numbers is to pay a nominal charge either to do a single phone number lookup or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the service long term.