Have you ever received silent calls, missed calls or missed calls on your cell phone from the same number more than once? Sometimes it’s enough to make you feel suspicious. Could it be a secret admirer, a jilted lover, a fired employee, the other woman, or an unknown child? It could be for a less melodramatic reason, but you’d still like to know. With a reverse cell phone directory lookup, you can trace the only trace an unidentified person left on your phone: the phone number.

Receiving a mysterious cell phone call is like receiving a flower delivery without a card. A reverse directory cell phone lookup is like a reverse 192 directory assistance service; you provide the phone number and the service provides the name of the person or establishment to which that number is attached. The best inexpensive way to do this is to simply go online and look up the number in your trusted phone book such as YellowPages.com or WhitePages.com. You can also use an Internet search engine such as Google or Yahoo.

White pages, yellow pages, search engines, and websites that provide a free reverse phone lookup service rely on various publicly available databases of numbers. If a number doesn’t appear, it’s probably not on the list. If it appears, the data it finds may be limited to the name and address of the owner. If the number is not, then your search will return no results. You can follow a similar method to perform a reverse email lookup service.

If you are doing a cell phone lookup for an important reason, you may want to invest in a paid reverse phone number lookup service. Such services would typically be subscription based and charge an annual fee. What you will pay for is access to the private databases of numerous telephone operators. Search results will be more detailed, including the state and city where the number is registered, and whether the number is landline or mobile. In any case, you are required by law not to abuse this access for illegal uses, including telemarketing and stalking.