Do you want to know who’s calling you without picking up the phone? Are you getting too many spam calls?
In the 21st century, methods of communication have advanced rapidly. It wasn’t that long ago that the simple fixed-line phone was the primary source of business and social communication. By the late ’90s, things began to change, and the cell or mobile phone started to slowly then rapidly take over, along with emails. Next was the simple text, then before long, social media was upon us, complete with their own messaging services.
Endless ways to contact in the 21st century
There are now countless ways to contact each other, and it’s easy to forget that actual phone lines still exist sometimes. But even with all these new modes of communication, phone calls still come in. Perhaps it’s because of the increased usage of messaging, emails, etc that we are a little bit warier of when an actual phone call comes in, particularly when we don’t recognize the number. No doubt the increase in spam in all forms of communication makes us a little skeptical too. But, if you want to know who is calling you, here are a few ways to find out.Â
Type in a phone number and find out who it is?
Show me the way Google
It’s hard to remember when other search engines were actually competing against each other; anyone remember Altavista? These days a quick google search can find you all sorts of things, including the owners of phone numbers.Â
Just give the number a quick search, and if it’s listed on their social media, it should come up. You can go directly to social media sites as well and see if you get a match.
You can also try reverse phone lookup or  Google phone number lookup and see what comes up. As much as Google tends to be the go-to search engine, you can give Yahoo and bing a try too. If nothing comes up, at least if you have the country code, you can know which geo-location it’s coming from to start narrowing down who it might be.
These days a quick google search can find you all sorts of things, including the owners of phone numbers.Â
Are they on the Spam list?
If you want to see if the number is on a telemarketer or spam list, head to WhoCallsMe and see if other users have reported anything. Their database has been compiled by other users who report numbers that are basically interrupting their day.
Free lookup services
Although it’s a little old now, Spy Dialer is a free service that might give you what you are looking for. Head to their website, put the number in the search, and see what comes up. The records might not be 100% up to date and if the caller has requested their info to be taken down, you might be out of luck on this one.
A few other similar free services include 411.com and AnyWho
Once you’re on their website, do a phone search once again and hope for the best.
Remember the white pages?
Back in the pre-internet days, the white pages were the go-to for everything, not just looking up friends, but its companion piece; the yellow pages were a must for finding a business service quick smart.
These days the white pages is available online naturally, as opposed to a massive book you could knock someone out with. But, it does come with a cost. Although you can do more than just check numbers, you can do background checks, tenant checks plus even more. If you are willing to pay for their services, then you can use them to look up a number. The good thing being that’s it’s normally up to date, as you would expect for a fee.
So, there are certainly plenty of ways to check, although that doesn’t mean you will 100% find what you’re looking for. But you do have plenty of options these days, and remember, you always have the block function.
