It used to be that everyone had a standard phone in their home and locating a number or address simply required opening the yellow pages and locating 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now that cell phones are widely used and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unpublished.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 show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to stop their name from coming up. Reverse phone lookup directories have stepped up to these changing times to provide 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 comes up on your ID, or you need to figure out cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can help you find out the name listed to the phone number of concern. Just by entering the phone number you will have access to whoever is behind those phone calls in question.

People needing such services include those wanting to check up on a number often 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 need to identify a name registered to a landline that is unlisted. If you have a phone number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can help.

Locating Addresses

another common use is to identify an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you gain access to the information associated with a specific phone number most services will deliver other sorts of information as well, which may include the address of an home phone or an address associated with a cell phone number.

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

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

Lookup directories can also deliver a connection to other various types of information, including income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint to the business or home's location.

There will be a nominal price for any up to date reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal life demands accurate data it is more than worth the payoff in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this variety of information is not simple or completely free to research, compile, and store, so dispensing it on demand to consumers like you must also include a fee to make up for these serviceable expenditures.

There probably will never be a phone book for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled it is probable the majority of the numbers would be unlisted just like many landline numbers today. The only way to obtain access to such phone numbers is to give a nominal fee either to do a one time phone number lookup or to join a lookup directory if you will need to access the service on a regular basis.