It used to be that everyone had a standard phone in their home and locating a phone number or address simply required opening the white pages and locating their name. Things have grown more complicated now that cell phones are widely used 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 landlines, many numbers may come up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to prevent their details from appearing. Reverse phone lookup services have stepped up to these changing demands 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 figure out cell phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can assist in finding the name registered 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 looking for this service include those who need to identify a number frequently calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Other people may use lookup directories when they want to find a name connected to a landline that may be unpublished. Whenever you have a phone number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can assist you.
Locating Addresses
another typical function is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you plug into the information linked with a certain number most directories will give other sorts of data as well, which includes the address of an landline or the address listed to a cell phone number.
This may not be a common need for most people, but it does have its benefits in quite a few situations. For instance, consider a parent in a rush to locate a teenager who has run off or is still out long after curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly tell them addresses as well as names of places the child may be located.
More common circumstances may be searching for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's peers. If you have their phone number you can get their address and get the invite in the mail without calling or tracking down other busy parents.
Lookup directories can also give you a connection to other various types of information, like income brackets and previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of where the home or business is located.
There is a nominal price for any relevant reverse phone lookup directory, but if your business or personal situation requires particular information it is more than worth the payoff in the long run. The charge is necessary because this kind of information is not simple or free to research, compile, and store, so dispensing it on demand to consumers such as you must also collect a fee to cover these operational costs.
There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if there were it is probable a lot of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many landline numbers right now. The only way to gain access to such numbers is to pay a minor charge either to do a one time number lookup or to join a lookup directory if you will be using the service long term.