Looking up Phone numbers is one of the core functions at Spokeo, and one that users rely on a lot.  Sometimes you’ll just want to know who’s calling, but often you may urgently need to find someone (or find out about someone) and their phone number is all you’ve got.  Whatever your reason, knowing how to search someone’s phone number is an essential modern life skill and Spokeo can make it much, much more efficient. 

Why Googling Phone Numbers Is Frustrating (the Case for Specialized Search)

We’re all pretty used to finding the information we want online, usually with just a few quick searches.  And it’s true that you can sometimes find somebody’s phone number through a Google search, but the deck is stacked against you.  

There are other ways to look up a phone number for free, but none of them is especially fast or entirely reliable.  When you really, really need to find someone’s phone number, and do it quickly, your best bet is definitely to use a specialized search tool like Spokeo’s Reverse Phone Lookup.  

How to Search Someone’s Phone Number

Performing a basic phone number search on Spokeo could hardly be easier, regardless of whether you’re searching on the website or using the Spokeo app (currently available for Android only). 

Performing a basic search from the Spokeo website

To perform a simple phone number search, open your browser of choice and go to Spokeo’s Reverse Phone Lookup page or Spokeo’s Home page (the Home page is smart enough to figure out what information you’ve put into the Search box, and will give you the correct results). 

Enter the 10-digit phone number into the search box, click or tap Search, and wait a moment for your results to show up (there are billions of records to search).  That’s it.  If you aren’t currently a Spokeo subscriber you’ll see the caller’s location in text and map form, and their phone carrier (you’ll have the option to pay to subscribe, if you wish).  Subscribers will see a full suite of available information about the number, which we’ll cover in a moment. 

Performing a basic search from the Spokeo Android app

Once installed, the Spokeo app will automatically show you the information for an incoming call while it’s happening.  You can also use it for manual searches, though, and it works in exactly the same way as a search from the website. 

Switch to the app (or tap to load it, if it’s not running), and then tap the search box, enter in the 10-digit phone number you want to look up and tap Search.  Again, you’ll see a limited result as a non-subscriber or full, detailed results as a subscriber . 

What Information Can I Find With a Phone Number? 

There’s a lot of information tied to phone numbers.  It’s most obvious with cellular numbers, because increasingly the online world is mobile-centric and tied to your phone.  Landline numbers are rarer now, but are connected to things like a physical address and — through that — can be used to infer many others.  All of this is reflected in your Spokeo search results. 

The actual details will vary depending on the phone number you search, but your result will include the number’s location, the phone carrier and — depending on the number’s history — either the name of its owner or a list of names of people who have been associated with the number (if there’s only one possible owner you’ll get a lot more detail, but we’ll come back to this shortly).  Depending on your reason for searching the number, you may be able to identify the correct person just by looking at the list.  If not, you can click on them one at a time in order to see whether the number you’re searching shows up as their current number.

Where available, you’ll also see an assessment called the Phone Reputation Score, which tells you whether the number is likely to be a scammer or spammer.  Finally, you’ll see some supporting available information about the time zone and area code, the demographics of the neighborhood, whether it’s a landline or mobile number, whether the number is portable between carriers and whether it’s a valid phone number (currently in use). 

What to Know About Spoofed Numbers and Caller ID

One complication to be aware of when searching a phone number, is that it’s possible for scammers to exploit the caller ID system and make it show false information.  That’s called spoofing, and it’s a valuable tool in the criminals’ arsenal.  It’s most commonly used to make it look like their call is genuinely coming from your bank or the IRS, or sometimes just someone in your immediate area (“neighbor spoofing”). 

When you use Spokeo to search a spoofed number, it’s typically going to show you the legitimate owner attached to that number.  This is why it’s important to take a close look at the Phone Reputation Score.  Among other things it will show you how often that number has been searched recently, and how many complaints have been made about it.  Even though the number itself (and its owner) may be legitimate, a spike in those two numbers may indicate that you should be cautious about calls from that number. 

Digging Deeper After an Initial Search

A simple, quick search using Reverse Phone Lookup may tell you everything you wanted to know, but there’s a lot more information you can uncover by taking those results and utilizing Spokeo’s other people-search tools. 

Clicking or tapping each person associated with the phone number you’ve searched (or depending on the situation, identifying a single person of interest and tapping their name) will bring you to a whole other set of search results, the same information you’d see if you had performed a Name Search from Spokeo’s home page.  If there was only one person associated with the phone number, this information will come up in your initial phone number lookup. 

This screen may contain a wealth of information.  It will vary from search to search, but may include any combination of: 

• Additional names or pseudonyms connected to that person, as well as (potentially) those of relatives.
• Additional phone numbers associated with that person.
• Email addresses and associated with that person.
• Previous addresses associated with that person.
• The person’s social media profiles and usernames.
• Court records, where they exist (depending on your subscription, there may be an extra charge for those).
• Personal information such as work history, home ownership and estimated wealth.
• Their interests.
• Age and marital status.

Much of this information can then be used — if desired — for additional searches. For example you might try running an Reverse Address Lookup or Reverse Email Lookup, or even an additional phone number search on each alternative phone number.  Each address, email or phone number may be connected to slightly different sources of information, in the same way your cousins’ cousins are connected to you but also to others who don’t share your bloodline.

Your own specific reasons for looking someone up may not extend to that kind of detailed investigation, but it’s nice to know you have the option if you need it (if you suspect you’re the victim of catfishing, for example).  

How to Find Someone’s Phone Number 

Searching someone’s phone number, then, is easy with Spokeo and returns a remarkable wealth of available information.  But what if you’re searching for someone’s phone number?  Well, that’s just as easy.   

Start with whatever information you do have at your disposal, whether that be a name, an address, an email address or a username from a social media platform.  Type it into the corresponding Spokeo search tool (usernames go in the email search) or in the main search box on the home page. 

If you search the name, for example, you’ll get a list of potential matches from all across the country.  You can whittle those down by eliminating anyone who’s the wrong age or sex, or in the wrong place.  Then you can click through each of the remaining people until you find the one you’re looking for, and their associated phone numbers.

Similarly, you could start with an address, and find your person on the list of current and former residents; or start with an email address and find the correct person (and number) from that.  For particularly elusive numbers you may need to go back and forth between these three tools, checking the search results against each other to make sure you get the right person, but you should almost always be able to find the number you’re looking for if you’re persistent. 

The Right Tool for the Job

The Swiss Army Knife is a remarkably useful and versatile tool, which is why so many of us carry one in a purse or a pocket.  But you won’t find anyone using its built-in scissors to cut hair, or its knife blade to prep food in a restaurant.  It’s a good general-purpose tool, but sometimes you need a tool that’s actually created specifically for the job at hand. 

When you really need to find out who’s been calling you, or carry out any similar form of “people search,” you need a specialized people-search tool like Spokeo. 

Sources:

Google Guide – Shortcut – Phone Numbers and Addresses

Better Business Bureau Scam Alert – “Neighbor Spoofing” Is a Common Type of Phone Scam