How to Identify the Owner of a Phone Number

Enter the phone number into a reverse phone number search or look-up website. A reverse phone number search is a website for when you already know the phone number and are looking to find out the name, address or location. A reverse phone number look-up is a user-supplied database of phone numbers from different types of people, such as telemarketers and scam artists. Additional information may include messages from other users who have been called from the same phone number.

Find more information from the phone number's area code and three-digit prefix. If you can't find the owner of a specific phone number, you can still find the general area of location by looking up the area code. After you know where the general area is, use a search engine, such as Google, to look up the area three-digit prefix which may reveal the phone number's city. By the time you know the city and state, you may suddenly recall why a person from this area would call you and identify the owner of the phone number.

Call the phone number back and ask the person who the owner is. If an unknown phone number shows on your caller ID, calling back is often the fastest and easiest way to identify the owner of a number. Oftentimes, when this scenario happens, it's someone who called the wrong number. If it's not a random person, it may be a business or a company, in which a person on the other end will answer the call back with a business name. At this point, you can ask who the owner of the business is and decide if you want to continue talking or hang up.