Not long ago, everyone had a landline phone in their home and finding a number or address simply required opening the yellow pages and finding their name. Things have grown more complex now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unpublished.
Even with the widespread use of caller ID on most home phones, some numbers may appear without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to stop their name from coming up. Reverse phone lookup services have stepped up to these changing demands to provide a very timely service to resourceful phone users.
There are two typical uses for lookup directories.
Locating Names
If you are getting calls from someone and only a number shows on your ID, or you want to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can assist in finding the name listed to the phone number of concern. Just by entering the phone number you will have access to whoever is behind the phone calls in question.
People needing this service include those who need to check up on a number constantly texting their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Others may use this when they want to find a name registered to a home phone that may be unpublished. Anytime you have a phone number but aren't sure who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup service can deliver the information.
Searching for Addresses
The other common use is to find an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you gain access to the contact information linked with a specific phone number most services will give additional data as well, such as the address of an home phone or the address listed to a cell phone number.
This may not be an everyday need for some people, but it does have its benefits in some situations. For instance, consider a parent in a rush to find a teenager who has run off or is still out well past curfew. If they can come up with numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly tell them addresses as well as names of locations the child may be located.
Other circumstances may be searching for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's friends. If you have a phone number you can get their address and mail out the invitation without calling or tracking down other busy family.
Lookup websites can also give you access to other various types of information, including income brackets or previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of the most current location.
There is a small charge for any up to date reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal life demands particular data it is worth the money in the long run. The charge is necessary because this variety of information is not simple or completely free to research, pull together, and store, so distributing it on demand to people like you must also come with a fee to account for such serviceable costs.
There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if there were most likely a lot of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many landline numbers right now. The best way to gain access to such numbers is to pay a small fee either to do a single number search or to join a lookup service if you will need to access the service long term.