Telephone Number Search Tips

Occasionally, you will receive a phone call from a number you don't recognize. You can often enter this number into a Web search to see whether it relates to a business. If the business displays its number on a website, you will be able to find the site by searching the phone number. However, you might need to use quotation marks and try a couple different formats. For example, try: (555) - 555 - 5555 or 555.555.5555 and 555 - 555 - 5555 as well as 55555555555.

White Pages is a phone number service for residences. You can find people by searching their last name. The more details you give, the more refined your search will be. If you are not sure how to spell someone's name, you can use a wildcard. For example, if you are looking for a Tommy Anderson, you can search for Tom Anders. This will return results such as Tommy Andersen, Tom Anderson and Tom Anders. You can also check a box to search the "surrounding area." For example, if you searched in Pittsburgh and checked "surrounding area" you would also receive Pennsylvania results of Aliquippa and Latrobe.

Yellow Pages searches work similarly, however they find businesses. You can search by category and zip code or city. For example, you can find Joe's Black and Gold Flowers by searching "Florists" and "Pittsburgh."

Another excellent resource for identifying telemarketers are community maintained phone number databases. Here, users will post comments on numbers that call them. Users can compare notes and help identify callers even if they are unlisted (see Resources).