We’ve all been subject to hang up calls, and until reverse lookup phone directories came along, we had very little chance of stopping them. The scenario is always the same: it’s the middle of the night and your phone rings, you wake up worried that something has happened to your friends or family. Naturally, you answer but the person on the other end hangs up or laughs at you.

You wake up abruptly, wander around, is it just a bored high school kid, a strange neighbor or could it be that someone is stalking you? Harassment calls are very frustrating and can even be scary. It was never easy to trace phone numbers, but it got really bad in the 1990s with the mass emergence of cell phones.

The massive use of cell phones, and especially prepaid ones, has allowed all kinds of weirdos to continue to harass people but still remain anonymous. However, in recent years things have changed with reverse lookup phone directories.

With reverse lookup phone directories, you now have a way to trace almost any phone number and discover the name and address of its owner. Until a few years ago, you could have used a combination of your caller ID and *69 service to automatically call back the last number that called you. Done right, you can sometimes get the owner’s name and stop further calls.

But again, cell phones with their screens and automatic caller ID have changed all that, and the culprits can now simply reject your call or ignore it. But what if you can combine your own caller ID with reverse phone number lookup and find out all about the mystery man who’s been stalking you for months?

You’ll see that every good reverse number directory has a database of over a billion records, searchable in seconds, so all you have to do is enter the number you have on your caller ID and instantly you will receive tons of information about its owner. Until now, the only people who had access to such technology were police officers or private investigators, who again are mostly ex-police officers.

However, today, for a small fee, any of us can use reverse phone number lookup technology and receive the same information as law enforcement officers. One thing you should know is that you won’t find much information if you try to trace cell phone numbers through free reverse cell phone lookup directories. Free directories have limited databases that comprise mostly only landline numbers.

There are simply millions of reasons why one might use the reverse number directory and not all of them are bad. You can search for old friends or relatives, find out who owns the house you are interested in buying.

However, stopping the harassing calls and restoring your peace of mind is undoubtedly one of the most important. Imagine if you use reverse phone lookup, find the name and address of the person who has been harassing you, and the next time you call you reply with “Hi Bill, long time no hear from you. Look, I have your name and address here and if you don’t want me to report to the police and press charges, please stop calling!” Do you think he will call again? I do not think so!