It used to be that everyone had a landline phone in their home and locating a number or address was a matter of opening the yellow pages and locating their name. It is often more difficult now that cell phones are in common use and many people do not even have home phones, and if they do their number may be unpublished.

Even with the development of caller ID on most landlines, some numbers may show up without an identifying name and there are ways for callers to stop their details from showing up. Reverse phone lookup services have stepped up to these changing demands to offer a very valuable service to modern phone users.

There are two common functions for these directories.

Locating Names

If you are receiving calls from someone and only a number is revealed on your caller ID, or you need to figure out cellular phone callers, reverse phone lookup services can help you find out the name listed to the number of concern. Just by typing in the phone number you will have access to the person who is initiating the phone calls in question.

People needing lookup directories include those wanting to check up on a number constantly calling their spouse or teenager's cell phone, since there is no phone book for cell phone numbers. Others may use lookup directories when they need to know a name listed to a home phone that is unpublished. If you have a phone number but don't know who it belongs to, a reverse phone lookup service can help.

Locating Addresses

another common use is to find an address for someone, whether you know the name of the person or not. Once you find the information linked with a specific number most services will deliver additional data as well, which includes the address of the home phone or the address connected to a cell phone number.

This may not be a typical need for some people, but it does have its uses in quite a few situations. For example, take a parent needing to track down a teenager who has run away or has not returned home well past curfew. If they can get access to numbers from the teenager's bedroom or cell phone a lookup directory could quickly reveal addresses as well as names of places the teenager may be located.

Other circumstances may be looking for addresses to mail out party invitations to your child's classmates. If you have the phone number you can access their address and easily deliver the invite without calling and tracking down other busy people.

Lookup directories can also deliver access to other sorts of data, including income brackets or address histories, and one site even gives a map with an estimated pinpoint of where the home or business is located.

There will be a small charge for any relevant reverse phone lookup website, but if your business or personal situation demands particular data it is money well spent in the long run. The fee is unavoidable because this sort of information is not simple or free to research, compile, and protect, so dispensing it as needed to people such as you must also collect a fee to make up for such working costs.

There probably will never be a public directory for cellular numbers, and even if they were compiled most likely many of the numbers would be unlisted as is the case with many landline numbers today. The only way to obtain access to these numbers is to put up a small charge either to complete a one time number lookup or to join a lookup directory if you will need to access the service on a regular basis.