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that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unpublished.

Even with the invention of caller ID on most landlines, a lot of numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup services have responded to these changing times to provide a very useful service to modern phone users.

There are two common functions for these services.

Searching for Names

If you are getting calls from someone and only a number comes up on your ID, or you want to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can help you find out the name registered to the phone number in question. Just by entering the number you will be able to identify whoever is responsible for those calls of concern.

People looking for this service include those wanting to identify a number frequently calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no accessible directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use lookup directories when they need to find a name listed to a landline that is unlisted. Whenever you have a number but aren't sure who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup service can assist you.

Finding Addresses

The other typical use is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you plug into the contact information connected with a specific number most directories will deliver other sorts of information as well, which includes the address of an landline or the address listed to a cell phone number.

This may not be an everyday need for most people, but it does have its benefits in quite a few situations. For example, take a parent desperate to track down a teenager who has run off or has not returned home 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.

Other situations may be searching for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's peers. If you have the phone number you can find their address and easily deliver the invite without calling or tracking down other busy people.

These services can also deliver access to other sorts of data, such as income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint of where the home or business is located.

There is a small charge for any legitimate reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal life demands particular data it is worth the money in the end. The charge is unavoidable because this kind of information is not easy or completely free to research, pull together, and save, so dispensing it on demand to people like you must also collect a charge to make up for these operational expenditures.

There likely will never be a phone book for cellular numbers, and even if there were it is probable a lot of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many home phone numbers today. The only way to gain access to such phone numbers is to pay a small fee either to complete a one time number search or to join a lookup directory if you will be using the service long term.