Typically, when you remember someone you haven't haven't heard from in awhile or need to contact an acquaintance who you don't have a number for, you simply go to the phone book and look up their last name. Nowadays, most people do not even waste space in their homes with the wasteful paper phone books, but go to websites which have the same information and look it up much quicker.

Yet things happen in most people's lives where they have a phone number and want to know who it is connected to. Phone books are designed only to look up the name of the person you want to connect with, and therefore offer little help. With cell phones being so widely used these days it gets even more difficult because there isn't a cell phone listing accessible to the public as with landlines. Clearly, technological advances have made another sort of number listing essential.

Reverse phone lookup is just what the name suggests: it reverses the method in which you typically use a phone number listing. Rather than browsing for a name to get to a phone number or address, you look up a phone number to retrieve the name or address of whoever the number may be registered to.

A lot of people do not even know this can be done, yet with the development of reverse phone lookup directories it is now widely used by many businesses. It is also growing with people who become interested in a number for one reason or another. It is a different take on the phone book and could potentially outdate the need for paper phone books in the future.

If you are receiving too many unwanted phone calls, whether they are annoying hang ups, rude pranks, or even solicitations and collection services who don't reveal who they are but call nonstop, it is possible to discover just who is making the calls by accessing one of these websites.

You can go to whitepages.com and find a free reverse phone lookup directory for very basic information or for published landline numbers, but there are two sorts of information that cannot be retrieved with any other means besides a more detailed service.

1. * If you have a number but no other information and must find a matching name.
2. * When you have someone's cell phone or an unpublished home phone number and need a name, address, or additional information. Whitepages.com will not help with these sorts of information because it is not updated with the information you need.

Reverse phone lookup services spend quite a bit of time finding information, double checking that it is as updated as possible, and maintaining it all in an organized fashion so that it can be quickly utilized by people as needed.

Much of this information retrieved is not easy to obtain and some of it they have to pay for in advance. For example, a trustworthy, accurate directory will have to pay cell phone companies for accurate listings of numbers. As with any business, it is to be expected that you will be required to hand over a small fee to gain access to their records.

The deal about the fee is it should be small and fair, for the most part around a buck or so for a single phone number lookup and about fifteen bucks for more long term subscription to the |listings|directory|service}. Any service which requires a high charge for limited information retrieved should be avoided.

There are too many valuable websites available to throw away time and money on inaccurate services, so be certain they can deliver the information you want before wasting your money.