You just got a call on your cell phone and no name came up. Don't you hate that?

You don't know whether you should answer it or not. You think it could be a friend. Maybe it's a number you've seen before but can't place. Maybe it isn't your phone but your spouse's and it's a number you don't know. Regardless of the situation, curiosity has gotten the best of you and you need to know who it is.

Well good news my friend - you have a few options to discover who it is before you have to pay a fee to lookup reverse phone numbers.

The Free Discreet Option

First you should try to look it up in one of the free tools available by doing a simple reverse telephone number look up. If you type in something such as "lookup reverse phone numbers" into Google, you'll get some results you can check out.

The other choice is if you're aware of a free option. I have used whitepages.com in the past and the site does have a reverse telephone number look up option right on the front page. When I have used it, I was able to find phone numbers for instances when it was either a business or residence.

Unfortunately if it is a cell phone or an unlisted number, finding the owner isn't as simple as punching it into a free website. The reason is because the owners of unlisted numbers have made a point of not having their phone number in a public database. Cell phones also fall into the same privacy realm and are not publicly available.

The Free Callback Option

You may not like this option, but since you had no luck finding it yet, then this is probably your only other free option before paying to lookup reverse phone numbers. You can be upfront and announce yourself or you can pretend to be someone else.

Keep in mind if you call them from a different phone than they called originally, they will have that second number. So if it is someone you don't want to know you are checking on or you don't want them to have a home, work or whatever number you are using, you may want to rethink this option.

The Discreet Final Option

If you have already tried to look it up but had no results and don't want to call the number yourself, then you will need to resort to using a reverse telephone number look up service. There are database services available which can produce the owner of cell phone, unlisted and other non-publicly available numbers.

Most of these services will also provide some additional data such as an address. The drawback to enlisting the service is they charge a fee for providing you the information. You usually have the option of a onetime fee or a slightly higher fee to lookup reverse phone numbers on an unlimited basis for the year. So if you have a few numbers to look up or expect you may, then you might want to consider the second option.

Benefits of a Service to Lookup Reverse Phone Numbers

Typically this is your last option but there are benefits. The best benefits of using a reverse telephone number look up service:

1. Convenience. You are able to get information from the convenience of your computer whenever you need it, 24 hrs a day, on any day of the year.
2. Confidentiality. Your search is completely confidential in most cases, check the site for this.
3. Guarantee. The service will guarantee results and if for some reason the service can't lookup reverse phone numbers for you and are unable to assist you, then you will be refunded.