Usually, when you recall someone you haven't spoken to in awhile or need to communicate with an old friend who you don't have a number for, you retrieve the phone book and find their last name. These days most people do not even waste space in their homes with the chunky paper phone books, but go to internet pages containing the same information and find what they need much quicker.
Yet circumstances occur in in everyday life where they have a phone number and want to determine who it is connected to. Old style phone books are designed only to look up the name of the person you hope to contact, and therefore are useless. With cell phones being so popular these days it gets even more troublesome since there isn't a cell phone directory free to the public as with landlines. Obviously, technological advances have made another sort of phone number directory essential.
Reverse phone lookup means exactly what the name states: it reverses the method in which you typically use a number listing. Instead of searching for a name to locate a phone number or address, you use a phone number to retrieve the name or address of whoever the number is listed under.
A lot of people do not even know this can be done, yet with the development of reverse phone lookup websites it is now possible in the business world. It is also becoming quite popular with people who get curious about a phone number for whatever reason. It is a more modern form of the phone book and is likely to eliminate the demand for paper phone books in the future.
If you are bothered by a high volume of disturbing calls, whether they are childish hang ups, disturbing pranks, or even telemarketers or collection services who don't clearly identify themselves but call at all hours, it is possible to discover just who is making the calls by tapping into one of these websites.
You can go to yellowpages.com and use a limited reverse phone lookup service for the most basic information or for published home phone numbers, but there are two sorts of information that cannot be found with any other source other than a more detailed service.
- * When you have a phone number but no additional information and need a matching name.
- * If you have someone's cell phone or an unpublished landline number and need a name, address, or other information. Whitepages.com will not help with this type of information because it is not equipped with the information you need.
Reverse phone lookup services spend quite a bit of time collecting information, keeping it as updated as possible, and maintaining it all in an organized fashion so that it can be quickly used by consumers on demand.
Much of this information collected is not that simple to locate and some of it must be paid for in advance. For example, a legitimate, well maintained directory will have to pay cell phone companies for updated listings of numbers. In turn, it is to be expected that you will have to pay a nominal charge to have access to their listings.
The key to the fee is it should be low and reasonable, usually about a dollar or so for a one-time phone number lookup and about 15 bucks for more long term access to the |listings|directory|service}. Any service asking for a substantial charge for limited information delivered should be avoided.
There are too many good websites out there to throw away time and money on incomplete services, so be certain they can deliver the information you need before giving them hard earned money.