A free cell phone lookup service is generally harder to find than one for landlines, as the best information is usually found in the records of the cell phone carriers themselves, and this information is extremely valuable to a growing number of organizations and private individuals. Access to these databases is trivial in price, when you consider their power and reach, and usually a small monthly fee is all that is required.
There are several people, professional and private, that utilize the cell phone lookup services that abound online, and these uses can range from locating relatives to locating those that have defaulted on loans or credit agreements. Reverse cell phone lookup is becoming a very important tool for many professions from bounty hunters to advertisers, and many private individuals have used these same services for a variety of applications ranging from checking on who their children are conversing with to computerized, automated dialer services. Cell phones are like having a wireless surveillance system in your pocket when combined with cell phone lookup services as you can easily record and offer as evidence harassing calls and proof of your location at a certain time, if needed.
The telemarketer craze found that services like WhitePages and Intelius can be quite useful in locating annoying telemarketers that are in violation of the new telemarketer laws and having the evidence to prove it. Many providers, including WhitePages, offer reverse cell phone lookup free of charge, but there is usually only general information to be retrieved, without paying for access to one of the databases in which the more detailed information is stored.
As with just about anything else that has become very popular on the Internet, there are many scams offering extensive directory services, and the best way to avoid them is either stick with trusted names like WhitePages and AnyWho, or just type a number into one of the search engines. Ensure you thoroughly investigate anyone online before giving them your financial information; there are less than reputable businesses that will hide behind legitimate ones or similar names and appearances in order to scam customers.