It used to be that everyone had a standard phone in their home and locating a phone number or address was a matter of opening the phone book and searching for their name. This has become more difficult 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 development of caller ID on most home phones, a lot of numbers may show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to block their name from showing up. Reverse phone lookup directories have stepped up to these changing times to offer a very useful service to resourceful phone users.
There are two typical functions for these services.
Searching for Names
If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your ID, or you need to figure out cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can assist in finding the name registered to the phone number in question. Just by entering the number you will be able to identify the person who is behind the calls of concern.
People needing such services include those who need to identify a number often phoning their spouse or children's cell phone, since there is no public directory for cell phone numbers. Other people may use this when they need to find a name connected to a home phone that is unpublished. If you have a number but are uncertain who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup website can assist you.
Searching for Addresses
The other typical use is to identify an address for someone, whether you know their name or not. Once you find the information linked with a particular number most services will deliver additional information as well, which includes the address of an landline or the address associated with a cell phone number.
This may not be a typical need for some people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. For example, take a parent needing to locate a teenager who has run away or has not returned home long after curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's belongings or cell phone a reverse phone lookup could quickly reveal addresses and names of places the teenager may be at that time.
Other situations may be searching for addresses to send out party invitations to your child's peers. If you have their phone number you can get their address and easily deliver the invite without calling and tracking down other busy people.
Lookup directories can also give you a connection to other various types of information, such as income brackets and address histories, and one site even gives a map with an rough pinpoint of the most current location.
There is a nominal price for any up to date reverse phone lookup service, but if your business or personal situation requires accurate information it is worth the money in the end. The charge is necessary because this sort of information is not simple or free to research, collect, and save, so issuing it immediately to consumers like you must also include a fee to account for these operational expenditures.
There likely will never be a public directory 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 these numbers is to put up a small fee either to complete a single number search or to join a lookup directory if you will be using the service on a regular basis.