There are times when a person has to inquire about the source of a phone number; whether it's a land line or a cell phone. This information is readily attainable with a reverse phone book lookup. For finding out the name and address of the owner of a land line, the service is often free. Trying to obtain information on the owner of a cell phone usually has a fee attached to it. Sometimes this fee is paid per search, while other websites offer an annual fee to be paid for a year's worth of service.

The need to find a name or location of a number for a land line isn't attainable from a regular phone book, since this is filled with names in alphabetical order. Cell phones don't even have a directory that people can thumb through, let alone one to look up unknown numbers in to find a name. There are services on line that offer this information for people trying to contact the owner of an unknown number.

There are services that have huge directories that are a combination of cell phone numbers, land line numbers, and unlisted phone numbers. These giant databases can provide anyone the information they require about a number, as long as they pay for it.

Services that provide this information are able to obtain it by purchasing access from phone companies and mobile phone services. They are bound by an agreement saying that they won't give this information out for free, due to privacy reasons.

This agreement does allow for a small fee to be charged for this information. When someone is trying to find out personal information, either a PayPal account or a credit card is required. Both of these forms of payment have personal information on them, so they are the only legitimate forms taken. The service through which the information is being gathered also has to be registered for, this eliminates the chance of someone using the new found information for stalking purposes.

Free phone lookup services are available for land lines, but not for cell phone numbers. These free online services aren't always available for all land line numbers either. If a number is unlisted, then it most likely won't be in this free directory. The free service will often give the name and address of the person owning the number in question, but this is often it. The paid services will provide a bit more information than just a name and address.

When looking up a number, the service usually will tell the inquirer if the number in question is a cell phone or a land line number. They will also tell the city and state of where the phone number is registered, as well as if there is any other information available for this same number. To acquire the name of the owner of the phone number is where the fee comes into play. These fees just keep everything legal and also keeps telemarketers from obtaining information as well.

Reverse phone book lookup services occasionally even offer instant geographical searches for free. These services are excellent for people who keep receiving irritating phone calls on a regular basis. Harassment via phone and prank phone calls in general can be extremely annoying. This reverse number lookup service can put someone's mind at ease by finding out who the culprit is.