Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a phone number or address was a matter of opening the white pages and searching for the name. It is often more difficult now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unlisted.

Even with the development of caller ID on most landlines, some numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their details from coming up. Reverse phone lookup services have stepped up to these changing demands to provide a very timely service to resourceful phone users.

There are two typical uses for lookup services.

Searching for Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you need to figure out cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name registered to the number of concern. Just by typing in the number you will have access to the person who is initiating those bothersome phone calls.

People looking for this service include those wanting to check up on a number frequently texting their spouse or teenager'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 listed to a home phone that is unlisted. If you have a phone number but aren't sure who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup website can deliver the information.

Finding Addresses

The other typical use is to find an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you plug into the contact information connected with a certain number most services will deliver additional data as well, such as the address of an landline or the address listed to a cell phone number.

This may not be a typical need for some people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. For instance, consider a parent needing to locate a teenager who has run off 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 as well as names of locations the child may be at that time.

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

Lookup websites can also give you access to other sorts of information, like income brackets or address histories, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint of where the home or business is located.

There is a nominal price for any legitimate reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation requires certain information it is money well spent in the long run. The fee is required because this variety of information is not easy or completely free to research, collect, and protect, so dispensing it on demand to people such as you must also collect a fee to account for these operational expenditures.

There probably will never be a public directory for cell phone numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable a lot of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many landline numbers right now. The best way to get access to such phone numbers is to pay a minor charge either to do a single number search or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the directory long term.