How often do you get a telephone call from a number that you don't recognize? The person didn't leave a voice mail message and you're reluctant to call back.
Could it be that jilted boyfriend or girlfriend from high school? Do you owe the neighborhood Girl Scout money from the eight cases of Thin Mints you bought last year? Maybe your school's alumni association finally figured out you no longer live with your parents; it only took my alma-matter 20 years to figure that out, and I'm fairly easy to find.
What if the call is something more important to your business? What if it was a prospective customer who didn't want to leave a message, and who is now calling your competition?
I quite frequently receive questions asking for the best free reverse telephone directory, and recently, reverse cell phone number search engines. So here are my two favorite resources:
Reverse Telephone Number Search
TelephoneReverse411.com is about as easy as it gets when it comes to free reverse telephone directories. Just enter a telephone number including area code into the search form and the result list will include the name and address associated with that number.
It's actually a bit scary, as some of the numbers I've searched include previous addresses (assuming the person had the same phone number as the old address). Some results even have the names of children who live at the address.
SpyDialer Reverse Cell Phone Search
Ever look at your cell phone bill and see other cell phone numbers that had called your child that you didn't recognize? Ever receive a call from an unfamiliar number and you didn't want to call back and speak to a person, e.g., a prospect, because you were unprepared?
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a reverse cell phone directory. As a free cell phone number search tool, SpyDialer, however, is the next best thing and frankly, it's a little sneaky.
Here's how it works: Enter an unknown cell phone number into the SpyDialer search form. While you wait, SpyDialer will dial the number and if successful, in a few moments you'll see an audio player on your computer screen. Click the play button and SpyDialer will play the other person's voicemail greeting, which of course oftentimes contains a first and last name, and sometimes even a company name. SpyDialer even saves the voicemail greeting so if anyone ever searches for that number again via SpyDialer, the system will share the cached version.
What's amazing is that SpyDialer is somehow able to dial the other person's cell phone and get directly to the voicemail greeting without the other person's cell phone even ringing. Meaning you're completely anonymous.
If you use SpyDialer's free service, if the other person does look at his or her recent call list, it may show that a call came in from SpyDialer although it cannot be tracked back to you, because again, you never technically made the call. If you use SpyDialer's premium service, no notifications are sent thus it is completely stealth. Note that the service doesn't always work, and of course if the other person does not have a personalized greeting, you won't know who it is. Yet in my SpyDialer usage, I've had success about 90% of the time.
Stop wondering who called you. Stop worrying about those unknown numbers. You'll know the answer, now that you Know More!
Image ©SpyDialer