Usually, when you remember someone you haven't have lost touch with or need to locate an coworker who you don't have a phone number for, you retrieve the phone book and search for their last name. These days 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 look it up much quicker.
Yet things happen in most people's lives where they obtain a phone number and want to identify who it belongs to. Old style phone books are designed only to look up the name of the business or person you want to reach, and therefore offer little help. With cell phones being so commonplace these days it gets even more complicated because there isn't a cell phone directory accessible to the public as we have with landlines. Obviously, developments in technology have made another variation of phone number listing necessary.
Reverse phone lookup is exactly what the name suggests: it reverses the method in which you usually use a phone number directory. Rather than looking up a name to locate a phone number or address, you look up a phone number to retrieve the name or address of whoever the number may be listed under.
A lot of people do not even know this is available, but with the existance of reverse phone lookup services it is now widely used by many businesses. It is also growing with people who find themselves interested in a number for whatever reason. It is a new sort of phone book and could potentially erase the demand for paper phone books in the future.
If you are bothered by a lot of unwanted phone calls, whether they are childish hang ups, rude pranks, or even solicitations and collection services who don't leave a message but call nonstop, it is possible to figure out exactly who is connected to the calls by utilizing one of these services.
You can go to whitepages.com and use a limited reverse phone lookup directory for very basic information or for published home phone numbers, but there are two varieties of information that cannot be retrieved by any other means besides a more detailed service.
- * When you have a phone number but no other information and need a corresponding name.
- * When you have someone's cell phone or an unpublished home phone number and need a name, address, or additional information. Yellowpages.com will not help with these sorts of information because it is not equipped with the information you want.
Reverse phone lookup services put out quite a bit of time finding information, ensuring it is as accurate as possible, and maintaining it all in an organized fashion so that it can be easily used by people whenever needed.
A lot of this information collected is not that simple to obtain and some of it must be paid for as well. For instance, a reputable, well maintained website will have to purchase numbers from cell phone companies for updated listings of phone numbers. As with any business, it is understandable that you will be required to hand over a nominal fee to gain access to their information.
The deal about the charge is it should be small and reasonable, for the most part around a dollar or so for a single phone number search and under 15 dollars for more long term access to the |listings|directory|service}. Any service asking for a high charge for limited information retrieved should be avoided.
There are too many valuable listings available to throw away time and money on inaccurate services, so make sure they can deliver the information you want before wasting your money.