It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a phone number or address was a matter of opening the white pages and finding their name. Things have grown more complex now that cell phones are widely used 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 landlines, many numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from showing up. Reverse phone lookup directories have stepped up to these changing demands to provide a very valuable service to modern phone users.
There are two typical uses for lookup directories.
Locating Names
If you are getting calls from someone and only a number comes up on your ID, or you need to identify 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 number you will have access to the person who is responsible for those calls of concern.
People in search of such services include those wanting to identify a number constantly texting their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Other people may use this when they need to know a name registered to a home phone that may be unpublished. If you have a phone number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can help.
Locating Addresses
another typical function is to locate an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you gain access to the information associated with a certain number most services will deliver additional information as well, which may include the address of an home phone or the address associated with a cell phone number.
This may not be a common need for some people, but it does have its benefits in some situations. Such as a parent needing to track down 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 reverse phone lookup could quickly uncover addresses and names of locations the teenager may be located.
Other situations may be looking for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's classmates. If you have the phone number you can access their address and easily deliver the invite without calling and tracking down other busy family.
These services can also deliver a connection to other sorts of information, like income brackets or previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint of the most current location.
There will be a small charge for any up to date reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal situation demands particular data it is worth the money in the long run. The charge is required because this variety of information is not easy or completely free to research, collect, and store, so distributing it immediately to others such as you must also collect a fee to make up for such serviceable expenditures.
There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled most likely many of the numbers would be unpublished just like many landline numbers right now. The best way to gain access to such phone numbers is to pay a nominal fee either to complete a single number search or to join a lookup service if you will be using the service on a regular basis.