Typically, when you remember 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 last name. Nowadays, most people do not even take up room in their office or homes with the oversized paper phone books, but prefer to visit websites which have the same information and find what they need much quicker.
Yet circumstances occur in most people's lives where they receive a phone number and need to identify who it belongs to. Phone books are designed on the knowledge of the name of the person you need to reach, and therefore won't help much. With cell phones being so popular these days it gets even more troublesome since there isn't a phone number directory free to the public as we have with standard home phones. Obviously, developments in technology have made another sort of phone number directory necessary.
Reverse phone lookup means exactly what its name suggests: it reverses the way you usually use a number listing. Rather than searching for a name to find 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 realize this is possible, but with the development of reverse phone lookup websites it is now possible in the business world. It is also on the rise with people who become interested in a number for one reason or another. It is a different take on the phone book and is likely to erase the demand for paper phone books in the future.
If you get a lot of unwanted phone calls, whether they are childish hang ups, rude pranks, or even solicitations and bill collectors who don't leave a message but call nonstop, it is possible to figure out just who is connected to the calls by tapping into one of these directories.
You can check out whitepages.com and find a free reverse phone lookup website for very basic information or for published home phone numbers, but there are two sorts of information that cannot be accessed with any other means other than a more detailed service.
- * When you have a number but no additional information and must find a matching name.
- * When you have a cell phone or an unpublished landline number and want to find a name, address, or additional information. Yellowpages.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 put out a lot of time compiling information, keeping it as updated as possible, and maintaining it all in an organized directory so that it may be easily accessed by people as needed.
A lot of this information collected is not easy to find and some of it they have to pay for in advance. For example, a legitimate, well maintained 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 pay a small charge to gain access to their listings.
The key to the fee is it should be small and fair, typically around a buck or so for a single phone number lookup and about 15 bucks for more long term access to the |listings|directory|service}. Any site that demands a large charge for very little information retrieved should be avoided.
There are too many good directories out there to throw away time and money on inaccurate services, so make sure they are offering the information you desire before handing over hard earned money.