Not long ago, everyone had a standard phone in their home and searching for a phone number or address simply required opening the phone book and locating their name. It is often 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now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.
Even with the widespread use of caller ID on most landlines, some numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from coming up. Reverse phone lookup services have responded to these changing demands to offer a very valuable service to resourceful phone users.
There are two common uses for these services.
Searching for Names
If you are getting calls from someone and only a number shows on your ID, or you want to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can assist in finding the name registered to the number of concern. Just by entering the number you will have access to whoever is behind those calls of concern.
People needing lookup directories include those who need to check up on a number frequently calling their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Others may use lookup directories when they want to know a name registered to a landline that is unlisted. Whenever you have a phone number but are uncertain who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup service can deliver the information.
Searching for Addresses
another typical use is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you gain access to the contact information associated with a certain phone number most directories will deliver additional information as well, such as the address of the landline or an address associated with a cell phone number.
This may not be an everyday need for some people, but it does have its uses in some situations. Such as a parent in a rush to track down a teenager who has run off or has not returned home long after curfew. If they can get access to 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 situations may be searching for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's peers. If you have their phone number you can get their address and get the invite in the mail without calling and tracking down other busy people.
Lookup websites can also deliver access to other various types of data, including income brackets or previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of the most current location.
There is a small charge for any relevant reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal situation demands accurate data it is money well spent in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this sort of information is not easy or completely free to research, pull together, and protect, so dispensing it on demand to people like you must also include a fee to cover these working costs.
There likely will never be a phone book for cell phone numbers, and even if there were most likely many of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many home phone numbers today. The best way to gain access to such phone numbers is to give a minor charge either to do a single number lookup or to join a lookup directory if you will need to access the service long term.