Usually, when you recall someone you haven't spoken to in awhile or need to locate an acquaintance who you don't have a phone number for, you simply go to the phone book and look up their name. These days most people do not even waste space in their living spaces with the wasteful paper phone books, but prefer to visit websites which have the same information and look it up much quicker.
Yet circumstances occur in in everyday life where they obtain a phone number and need to determine who it belongs to. Old style phone books are designed on the knowledge of the name of the person you hope to contact, and therefore offer little help. With cell phones being so popular these days it gets even more difficult because there isn't a phone number directory free to the public as we have with residential numbers. Clearly, technological advances have made another variation of number directory essential.
Reverse phone lookup is exactly what the name suggests: it reverses the way you normally use a phone number listing. Rather than searching for a name to find a number or address, you look up a phone number to retrieve the name or even address of whoever the number may be registered to.
A lot of people do not even realize this is available, yet with the development of reverse phone lookup websites it is now possible by many businesses. It is also on the rise with individuals who find themselves curious about a phone number for for various reasons. It is a different take on the phone book that may very well eliminate the need for paper phone books in the future.
If you get a lot of disturbing calls, whether they be childish hang ups, distasteful pranks, or even solicitations and collection services who don't clearly identify themselves but call at all hours, there is a way to identify just who is making the calls by utilizing one of these directories.
You can go to whitepages.com and access a free reverse phone lookup directory for very basic information or for listed home phone numbers, but there are two categories of information that cannot be accessed with any other means other than a more detailed directory.
- * If you have a phone number but no other information and must find a name.
- * If you have someone's cell phone or an unpublished landline number and need a name, address, or additional information. Whitepages.com is not going to help with these sorts of information because it is not equipped with the information you are searching for.
Reverse phone lookup services spend quite a bit of time collecting information, keeping it as updated as possible, and saving it all in an organized directory so that it can be easily utilized by consumers whenever needed.
A lot of this information compiled is not easy to obtain and some of it must be paid for in advance. For instance, a legitimate, accurate listing will have to purchase numbers from cell phone networks for updated listings of numbers. As with any business, it is to be expected that you will have to hand over a small charge to have access to their records.
The key to the fee is it should be small and reasonable, for the most part around a dollar or so for a single phone number search and about fifteen bucks for more long term access to the |listings|directory|service}. Any site which requires a high fee for limited information delivered should be avoided.
There are too many worthwhile listings out there to throw away time and money on incomplete resources, so be certain they actually have the information you need before handing over your money.