It used to be that everyone had a landline 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 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 widespread use of caller ID on most landlines, a lot of numbers may show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from appearing. Reverse phone lookup directories have responded to these changing times to offer a very useful service to modern phone users.

There are two typical uses for these directories.

Searching for Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you want to identify cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup directories can assist in finding the name listed to the phone number of concern. Just by entering the number you will be able to identify whoever is responsible for the bothersome phone calls.

People needing lookup directories 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. Other people may use lookup directories when they need to identify a name registered to a home phone that may be unpublished. If you have a phone number but aren't sure who it is connected to, a reverse phone lookup service can deliver the information.

Finding Addresses

The other typical use is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you plug into the contact information connected with a certain phone number most services will give additional data as well, which may include the address of an landline 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 example, take a parent needing to track down a teenager who has run off or has not returned home long after curfew. If they can find phone numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly reveal addresses as well as names of locations the teenager may be at that time.

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

Lookup directories can also deliver a connection to other kinds of information, such as income brackets or previous addresses, and one site even gives a map with an general pinpoint of the most current location.

There will be a minor fee for any up to date reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation demands accurate data it is more than worth the payoff in the long run. The charge is necessary because this variety of information is not easy or completely free to research, pull together, and store, so issuing it immediately to people like you must also include a charge to make up for such serviceable expenditures.

There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if there were it is probable many of the numbers would be unlisted just like many home phone numbers today. The best way to get access to these numbers is to give a small fee either to complete a single phone number search or to join a lookup directory if you will be using the service on a regular basis.