Friday, June 27, 2008

What Is a Reverse Phone Look up

By Pauline Stradlen

A reverse phone number lookup is very useful in this day and age when every one has a cellphone, for example you may have written down someones number but can't remember who it was that gave it to you. If the phone number is a landline number it is relatively easy to use a reverse lookup service to get information on the owner, including their name and address. It can be more difficult however to perform a reverse lookup on a mobile phone number. The main reason for this is that the free directories don't have access to the cell numbers, as they are held independently by each individual carrier company.

It is possible to gain access to this information though, unfortunately not for free. There are several sites that hold databases on both residential and mobile phone numbers. The phone number records that are held by the phone companies are sold to other third party companies who can access the details for you for a fee.

These databases hold a large amount of information, and not just names and addresses, you can access criminal records, civil records and various other information necessary for background checks. For a one-off fee you can often search as many numbers as you wish, and many services will also provide information on unlisted numbers.

Any information you get from a good quality paid service will be equal to that you would pay money for a private investigator to obtain. The information you get could be used for any number of reasons, check up on a new babysitter, background checks on employees, even your daughter's new boyfriend!

Be wary of sites that offer a free reverse phone number lookup as in my experience they are merely covers for paid companies. I have never found a free service that has access to both cell phone and landline data. Most of these sites will let you run the search for free but will then charge you to see or download the results, which can be very frustrating.

You will then be funnelled off to their sister site where you will be paying for the service. What you need to remember here is that the paid reverse phone lookup services charge a fee for a reason, that is to legally access extensive databases. Most of these services will offer a money back guarantee so you can be sure they are not trying to scam you.

There are lots of different reasons why you would run a reverse phone number look up, checking on a cheating partner, or getting information on your teenager his new friends. These services provide a very useful tool that will become important in the future.

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