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 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now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.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, a lot of numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their details from showing up. Reverse phone lookup directories have stepped up to these changing times to provide a very valuable service to resourceful phone users.

There are two common functions for lookup services.

Finding Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number shows on your ID, or you want to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name listed to the number of concern. Just by typing in the number you will have access to the person who is responsible for those calls of concern.

People needing such services include those who need to identify a number constantly phoning their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use lookup directories when they want to know a name listed to a landline that is unlisted. If you have a phone number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup website can help.

Locating Addresses

The other common purpose is to identify an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you gain access to the contact information linked with a certain number most services will deliver other sorts of data as well, which may include the address of an home phone or an address connected to a cell phone number.

This may not be a common need for some people, but it does have its uses in some situations. Such as a parent desperate to locate a teenager who has run away or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly reveal addresses and names of locations the child may be at that time.

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

Lookup directories can also give you access to other kinds of information, such as income brackets or address histories, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint of where the home or business is located.

There is a nominal price for any up to date reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation demands accurate data it is worth the money in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this sort of information is not simple or free to research, compile, and store, so dispensing it as needed to people like you must also collect a charge to account for such serviceable costs.

There probably will never be a phone book for cell phone numbers, and even if there were most likely many of the numbers would be unlisted just like many landline numbers today. The best way to gain access to these phone numbers is to give a small fee either to do a single number search or to join a lookup service if you will be using the service long term.