It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and searching for a phone number or address was a matter of opening the white pages and searching for their name. Things have grown more complicated now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have landlines, and if they do their number may be unlisted.

Even with the invention of caller ID on most home phones, many numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from coming up. Reverse phone lookup services have stepped up to these changing times to provide a very timely service to modern phone users.

There are two common functions for these directories.

Finding Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number comes up on your ID, or you need to figure out cell 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 the person who is responsible for the bothersome phone calls.

People needing such services include those wanting to identify a number often calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Other people may use lookup directories when they want to know a name registered to a home phone that may be unlisted. Anytime you have a number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup directory can help.

Searching for Addresses

another common function 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 connected with a specific number most directories will deliver additional data as well, which may include the address of an landline or an address connected 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. Such as a parent in a rush to locate a teenager who has run away or is still out well past curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly reveal addresses as well as names of places the teenager may be at that time.

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

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

There is a minor fee for any relevant reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal situation demands certain information it is worth the money in the long run. The fee is required because this kind of information is not easy or completely free to research, collect, and store, so issuing it immediately to people such as you must also collect a charge 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 a lot of the numbers would be unpublished as is the case with many landline numbers today. The only way to obtain access to such numbers is to pay a nominal fee either to do a one time number search or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the directory long term.