Not long ago, everyone had a standard phone in their home and locating a number or address was a matter of opening the white pages and finding the name. It is often more complex now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.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 home phones, some numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from showing up. Reverse phone lookup services have responded to these changing times to offer a very valuable service to modern phone users.

There are two typical uses for lookup directories.

Finding Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number comes up on your ID, or you want to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can assist in finding the name registered to the number in question. Just by entering the phone number you will have access to the person who is responsible for those bothersome phone calls.

People in search of this service include those who need to check up on a number constantly calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Other people may use this when they want to identify a name listed to a home phone that is unpublished. Whenever you have a phone number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup website can deliver the information.

Locating Addresses

another common function is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you plug into the information associated with a particular number most services will deliver other sorts of information as well, which includes the address of the home phone or an address listed to a cell phone number.

This may not be a typical need for some people, but it does have its benefits in some situations. For example, take a parent desperate to track down a teenager who has run off or is still out well past curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly tell them addresses as well as names of locations the child may be located.

Other circumstances may be searching for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's classmates. If you have the phone number you can get their address and mail out the invitation without calling and tracking down other busy family.

Lookup websites can also give you a connection to other kinds of data, such as income brackets or address histories, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint to the business or home's location.

There will be a small charge for any up to date reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal life requires certain data it is more than worth the payoff in the end. The charge is necessary because this kind of information is not easy or completely free to research, collect, and protect, so dispensing it on demand to people like you must also collect a charge to make up for such working costs.

There probably will never be a phone book for cellular numbers, and even if there were most likely many of the numbers would be unpublished as is the case with many landline numbers today. The best way to get access to such phone numbers is to pay a nominal charge either to complete a one time number search or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the service long term.