It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and searching for a phone number or address simply required opening the yellow pages and locating the name. This has become more complicated 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 invention of caller ID on most home phones, some numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their name from coming up. Reverse phone lookup providers have responded to these changing times to offer a very useful service to resourceful phone users.

There are two typical uses for lookup 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 help you find out the name listed to the number of concern. Just by entering the phone number you will be able to identify the person who is behind those phone calls in question.

People needing lookup directories include those wanting to identify a number frequently texting their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no accessible directory for cell phone numbers. Other people may use this when they need to know a name registered to a landline that is unlisted. Whenever you have a phone number but don't know who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup directory can help.

Finding Addresses

another typical function is to identify an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you find the information linked with a specific number most directories will deliver other sorts of information as well, which includes the address of an home phone 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. Such as a parent in a rush to track down a teenager who has run away or is still out long after curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly tell them addresses and names of locations the teenager may be located.

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

Lookup directories can also deliver access to other sorts of data, like income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint of the most current location.

There is a minor fee for any legitimate reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation requires particular data it is more than worth the payoff in the long run. The charge is unavoidable because this sort of information is not easy or free to research, compile, and store, so dispensing it immediately to others like you must also collect a fee to cover such operational costs.

There more than likely will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable the majority of the numbers would be unpublished just like many landline numbers right now. The best way to get access to these numbers is to put up a minor fee either to do a single phone number search or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the service on a regular basis.