Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and finding a number or address was a matter of opening the phone book and finding their name. It is often more difficult now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.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 development of caller ID on most landlines, a lot of numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup providers have stepped up to these changing times to offer a very timely service to modern phone users.

There are two common uses for these directories.

Searching for Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number shows on your ID, or you need to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can assist in finding the name registered to the number of concern. Just by entering the number you will be able to identify the person who is initiating the calls of concern.

People looking for this service include those wanting to identify a number often phoning their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Other people may use lookup directories when they want to identify a name connected to a home phone that is unpublished. Whenever you have a number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can help.

Locating Addresses

another typical function is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you gain access to the information associated with a specific phone number most directories will deliver other sorts of information as well, which may include the address of an landline or an 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. Such as a parent in a rush to locate a teenager who has run off or is still out long after curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly tell them addresses as well as names of locations the teenager may be located.

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

These services can also give you access to other kinds of information, like income brackets or address histories, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of the most current location.

There will be a nominal price for any legitimate reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal life demands accurate data it is worth the money in the long run. The charge is unavoidable because this sort of information is not easy or free to research, compile, and save, so dispensing it as needed to consumers like you must also collect a charge to cover these operational expenditures.

There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable many of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many landline numbers right now. The only way to get access to such phone numbers is to give a small fee either to complete a one time number lookup or to join a lookup directory if you will be using the service on a regular basis.