Just a few days ago I was answering questions on a well known answers website. Sometimes when I am chilling having a cup of tea I venture onto one or other of the answers sites to see if I can help someone with their own computer problems.
At the top of the list of latest questions was somebody asking why they had to pay to reverse look up a cell phone number. It was a smart question simply because you wouldn't expect to pay to look up the owner of a landline number. You'd just go to the white pages web site and there's a lookup box there on the front page.
Why isn't there a similar facility for looking up a cell phone number? That set me wondering. Why is not there such a thing as a free mobile phone lookup?
If you possess a landline there are some things that make it easy for the mobile phone businesses to compile a listing of the owner of which number and just what your address is. First of all, a landline is fixed. The telephone company know where the phone line plus they are aware of the address it is actually suited to. Next you might be, efficiently, under contract to the phone provider. You have to pay your bills frequently. This only means that the phone company knows who you are as the number is registered in the bill payer's name. Both of these things make it simple for the phone firms to supply a list of the owner of which number.
If you think about it, you will realize that it's not very easy for cell phones. You can purchase a prepaid mobile phone over the internet. You can purchase a prepaid mobile phone in the store with your groceries. Nobody at the check-out asks who you are - they just scan the box and then sell you the mobile phone. You might be anyone from anywhere. It isn't even essential to sign-up the number and top up using a credit card, although you can perform this if you would like. You can purchase top up cards in many shops and just enter the card number. It is all anonymous.
That's why countless scammers use mobile phones. Everyone can purchase one, everyone should take one, you may use it anywhere and everyone can top it up.
I think you can start to see how difficult it is to compile a realistic listing of who owns which cell phone number and to provide a sensible reverse lookup services. However these types of services do exist. So - how do they manage to give a lookup service and also why do you have to pay for it.
Reverse lookup services need to gather the data for themselves. This means getting in huge listings of cell numbers and collating them to provide meaningful data. Not an easy task. These listings are often gathered from websites or forms that ask people for their own cell numbers. If you do not specifically ask that the information is not passed on (generally by checking or perhaps unchecking a box) then this data might get added to one of the lists that's then sold to the reverse look up companies.
The white pages data is supplied as an extra since their clients are by now spending money on the provision of their landlines. Reverse number providers are businesses that exist solely to provide this service and also have to earn money to pay their employees, keep their web sites and buy in those all important listings of data.
At the top of the list of latest questions was somebody asking why they had to pay to reverse look up a cell phone number. It was a smart question simply because you wouldn't expect to pay to look up the owner of a landline number. You'd just go to the white pages web site and there's a lookup box there on the front page.
Why isn't there a similar facility for looking up a cell phone number? That set me wondering. Why is not there such a thing as a free mobile phone lookup?
If you possess a landline there are some things that make it easy for the mobile phone businesses to compile a listing of the owner of which number and just what your address is. First of all, a landline is fixed. The telephone company know where the phone line plus they are aware of the address it is actually suited to. Next you might be, efficiently, under contract to the phone provider. You have to pay your bills frequently. This only means that the phone company knows who you are as the number is registered in the bill payer's name. Both of these things make it simple for the phone firms to supply a list of the owner of which number.
If you think about it, you will realize that it's not very easy for cell phones. You can purchase a prepaid mobile phone over the internet. You can purchase a prepaid mobile phone in the store with your groceries. Nobody at the check-out asks who you are - they just scan the box and then sell you the mobile phone. You might be anyone from anywhere. It isn't even essential to sign-up the number and top up using a credit card, although you can perform this if you would like. You can purchase top up cards in many shops and just enter the card number. It is all anonymous.
That's why countless scammers use mobile phones. Everyone can purchase one, everyone should take one, you may use it anywhere and everyone can top it up.
I think you can start to see how difficult it is to compile a realistic listing of who owns which cell phone number and to provide a sensible reverse lookup services. However these types of services do exist. So - how do they manage to give a lookup service and also why do you have to pay for it.
Reverse lookup services need to gather the data for themselves. This means getting in huge listings of cell numbers and collating them to provide meaningful data. Not an easy task. These listings are often gathered from websites or forms that ask people for their own cell numbers. If you do not specifically ask that the information is not passed on (generally by checking or perhaps unchecking a box) then this data might get added to one of the lists that's then sold to the reverse look up companies.
The white pages data is supplied as an extra since their clients are by now spending money on the provision of their landlines. Reverse number providers are businesses that exist solely to provide this service and also have to earn money to pay their employees, keep their web sites and buy in those all important listings of data.
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