Remember the good old days when, if you wanted someone’s phone number, all you had to do was look it up in the white pages? White pages are still available (many of them online), but what do you do when you’re trying to find a cell phone number? Well, one of the many versions of cell phone white pages on the web might come to your rescue.
Now, you’ll need to bear in mind some caveats regarding cell phone white pages, the biggest being that, well, they don’t really exist. At least not for free. But don’t despair! There are a number of ways to utilize search engines as your own personal cell phone white pages or, if you’re really desperate, you might turn to one of the many available paid services.
First of all, you have to consider the type of search you’re doing. For example, if you’re starting with a phone number and looking for the person associated with that number, that’s known as a reverse look-up. If you’re starting with the person and looking for their cell phone number, that’s a traditional look-up. Either way, there are a few tricks of the trade for finding the information.
To start, consider using Google as a sort of makeshift cell phone white pages. In the ubiquitous tool bar, type in the name of the person you’re looking for and the word “cell.” So, for example, if I were looking for Jane Doe’s cell phone number, I’d type in “Jane Doe cell.” You’d be surprised how often this works. A tremendous amount of information is stored on the Internet – information you may not even know is out there.
And speaking of tremendous amounts of information online, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are often loaded with this type of information. Some users (wisely or not) provide all kinds of information on their personalized pages – a quick search of the site may reveal all you need (and more).
Finally, you may be able to find cell phone numbers the old fashioned way, through 411. Many cellular providers are asking their customers if they’d like to “opt-in” to a directory service. In doing so, these customers agree that their information will be available through their providers own “411″ service.
If none of these free options work, there are some paid cell phone white pages options available from $15 to $150. These services tend to utilize public utility records that are not available to the general public, but can be accessed – for a fee. Take a look at http://www.reversephonedirectory.com/, www.searchdetective.net and
www.abika.com to start.
Clearly, the question for the future is “will there ever be a true cell phone white pages listing?” And, of course, do we want that? Many people prefer to keep their cell phone number private. There is great concern amongst cell phone users that the general availability of a directory will result in increased telemarketing calls to private phones.
Until that debate is resolved, hopefully the options noted in this article will help you with your cell phone white pages search!
