Not long ago, everyone had a standard phone in their home and searching for a phone number or address simply required opening the white pages and locating the name. Things have grown more difficult now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unlisted.

Even with the development of caller ID on most home phones, a lot of numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their name from showing up. Reverse phone lookup providers have stepped up to these changing times to provide a very useful service to resourceful phone users.

There are two common functions for lookup directories.

Finding Names

If you are getting calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you want to identify cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can assist in finding 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 the bothersome phone calls.

People in search of lookup directories include those wanting to check up on a number frequently calling their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no accessible directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they want to know a name registered to a home phone that is unlisted. Anytime you have a phone number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup directory can assist you.

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 find the information associated with a certain phone number most directories will deliver additional data as well, which includes the address of an home phone or the address connected to a cell phone number.

This may not be a common need for most people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. For example, take a parent desperate to locate a teenager who has run away or has not returned home long after curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly reveal addresses and names of locations the teenager may be located.

More common situations may be searching for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's peers. If you have their phone number you can find their address and mail out the invitation without calling or tracking down other busy people.

These services can also deliver a connection to other kinds 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 legitimate reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal situation demands particular data it is money well spent in the long run. The charge is unavoidable because this variety of information is not simple or completely free to research, pull together, and protect, so issuing it as needed to people like you must also include a fee to cover these working expenditures.

There more than likely will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if there were most likely a lot of the numbers would be unpublished as is the case with many landline numbers today. The only way to get access to such numbers is to pay a minor charge 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.