Barry's Blog: How do you find out whose number it is?

Many of us have had to find someone using the internet. The fortunate thing is, there are many ways to find people. Most of them are not all that different from each other.

When you start your search, think about obvious things to rule out:

Is (s)he in the military? You need a Social Security number for this one

https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/scra/owa/home

Is (s)he deceased? All you need is a full name for this one

http://ssdi.rootsweb.com

Is (s)he in prison? Now for this one if you have no idea where (s)he is, search the federal site and look for each state’s site.

http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/LocateInmate.jsp

Now these three questions my seem far – fetched for some people you are looking for, but you can eliminate a lot of needless searching if the answer is yes to the above.

Before you pay Reverse Phone Detective for information on the internet, I suggest that you take some time to find information from free sources. NOTE: Many free sites send you to a pay site after they “find” the person you are looking for. Here are several free places you can check on your own for information:

If you will be doing several searches – consider downloading the program from argali.com, It searches all of the above, and them some. If you only want to use it once, it may not be worth the trouble. They have a free (ad driven) and a pay version.

Now, before you go and pay for information, if what information you found was correct, first go to Black Book. Black Book is NOT a search site. It does tell you where you can search the public records for more information.

Reverse Phone Check (How do I find who owns a phone number?):

What if I have a number and I want to know who it belongs to? Before you check anything else, I suggest you check at Phone Validator. This sit tells you if the phone is a land line or a cell/mobile phone.

If it is a cell phone, or unlisted number, you will need to pay to find the number.

Try these guys for this: Reverse Phone Detective

There are many PAY Sites – some you may have to request to join, others just do it for the money. Some of these search all sorts of data (including credit reports), yet a thorough search of public records may prove to give you more. However, you may not have the time, so these pay sites may be worth it to you:

Skip Smasher

Master Files

Vitalrec.com (These guys give a small bit of information for free)

US SEARCH

Now if you still have trouble finding who you want, let me know, I may have some more ideas to your specific case.