Normally, when you remember someone you haven't spoken to in awhile or need to locate an acquaintance who you don't have a number for, you simply go to the phone book and find their name. Yet in current times most people do not even take up room in their office or homes with the chunky paper phone books, but would rather use websites which have the same information and find what they need much quicker.

Yet problems arise in most people's lives where they have a phone number and want to determine who it belongs to. Phone books are designed around knowing the name of the person you want to connect with, so are useless. With cell phones being so commonplace these days it gets even more troublesome since there isn't a phone number listing free to the community as with standard home phones. Clearly, technological advances have made another sort of phone number listing necessary.

Reverse phone lookup is basically what its name states: it reverses the way you normally use a phone number listing. Instead of searching for a name to locate a phone number or address, you look up a phone number to locate the name or even address of whoever the number may be registered to.

Many people do not even know this is possible, yet with the invention of reverse phone lookup services it is now widely used by many businesses. It is also growing with individuals who get interested in a phone number for for various reasons. It is a more modern form of the phone book that may very well outdate the need for phone books in the future.

If you are bothered by a high volume of disturbing calls, whether they be childish hang ups, disturbing pranks, or even solicitations and bill collectors who don't leave a message but call nonstop, it is possible to identify just who is making the calls by accessing one of these services.

You can go to yellowpages.com and access a free reverse phone lookup website for the most basic information or for listed home phone numbers, but there are two varieties of information that cannot be found with any other means other than a more detailed listing.

1. * When you have a number but no additional information and want a matching name.
2. * If you have a cell phone or an unpublished landline number and need a name, address, or other information. Yellowpages.com will not help with this type of information because it is not equipped with the information you need.

Reverse phone lookup directories put out quite a bit of time obtaining information, double checking that it is as accurate as possible, and saving it all in an organized listing so that it can be quickly utilized by people on demand.

Much of this information collected is not easy to find and some of it they have to pay for as well. For instance, a trustworthy, up to date website will have to pay cell phone networks for accurate listings of numbers. As with any business, it is understandable that you will have to pay a nominal fee to gain access to their information.

The deal about the charge is it should be low and affordable, usually around a dollar or so for a one-time phone number lookup and under fifteen bucks for more long term subscription to the |listings|directory|service}. Any directory which requires a substantial charge for very little information retrieved should be avoided.

There are too many worthwhile websites out there to throw away time and money on incomplete resources, so make sure they actually have the information you desire before giving them hard earned money.