Looking up phone numbers has been around for ages, but doing a reverse phone number lookup and finding a person's name, and address is relatively something new which has come along with the internet.
Doing a reverse phone number lookup might be done for a variety of reasons like tracking harassing phone calls, catching a cheating spouse, or identifying possible customers.
On the internet, there are many sits available to use for a reverse phone lookup. A reverse phone number lookup means taking a phone number and typing it into a search database that will return the name and address of the person who owns the number. It does the opposite of doing a phone search because a person doesn't have a name to use for the search, just the number. A reverse phone lookup can be done for both landlines and mobile phones.
There are a great many options for doing a reverse phone number lookup online. When choosing a database consider the size of the database. Some have a few million people listed others have a few billion. Also, take into consideration how up to date the information on the site is. Some sites have come and gone leaving behind old and outdated material.
At www.freeprf.com they have links to many different databases for phone lookups. The site includes everything from area decoders to pay phone directories.
Yahoo also has a directory of reverse lookup sites as well as Google, and Bing. Try typing a business phone number such as (818) 704-9925 in the Google search box. What shows, is the name of the company, it's address, a map of its location and all the websites which list that phone number. The same works for residential phone numbers if it's not an unpublished number. If the number is unpublished, it still may show if it has ever been used on a website or in an online ad.
In this day and age of applications for cell phones it's not surprising that there are apps to lookup cell phone numbers. There is Reverse Cell Phone Lookup by Netgem, which is a free widget that looks up cell phone numbers. Reverse Telephone Detective is a widget that will help you search for cell phone numbers and gives a tutorial on how to go about a successful search.
Apple has a reverse phone number lookup for called uGuX. uGuX will search multiple databases to find information on a number. The Information typically includes the name of the phone's owner and his or her address. This program works best for commercial numbers of businesses. Recently a white pages search was added to the application. It will not find unlisted numbers but will redirect the user to a paying web service.
iPhone also has an application tool, which will search for reverse cell phone numbers. It will search over 1 million users bringing back the name, and address of the owners along with background information.
Finally, there are pay sites that you can use to conduct a reverse phone trace on an unpublished number. One great site is PhoneSearchCentral.com. Phone Search Central is not a database, but rather a group of seasoned private investigators who specialize in tracing unlisted telephone numbers. So when you do a reverse phone number trace, first see what you can find online for free and if you come up empty then hire a professional. The fee is reasonable.
