How Do They Do It?

briggs

My wife and I were talking about how we are able to phone friends and family since whitepages and 411 no longer exist. For us, it is by friends and family calling or emailing or texting us and giving us the number.

But how does someone get a number for somebody whose name and / or address he knows but nothing more?

Do you really have to pay whitepages.com or some similar company to get the information?

And how do they get the information? There seem to be several ways people acquire and use phone numbers: voip with a company like voip.ms using an ata, a number from the isp you get your internet from, a cell phone company. There are probably others i don’t know of.

Can a company like whitepages.com get the information from these various sources?

justDave

These sites keep disappearing but this one has been working for a while.

https://www.smartbackgroundchecks.com/phone

Disclaimer: I have no idea what they do with the data you give them.

nightwalker

Hello.

Most people have cell phones, so posting your number publicly usually brings a lot of spam calls and texts. A simple way to share it without broadcasting it everywhere is to add it to a social media profile like Facebook or Instagram.

Cheers

Pulsar

It may depend based on where you live, but where I am, even 20 years ago, you were limited to those who had a line with the POTS company. When they deregulated and the cable company started selling its own service through DOCSIS, the phone company was putting advertisements in the newspaper (feel old yet!?) about how only Bell had numbers in the phone book.

As far as I know, there is no centralized registry for phone numbers anymore, so you’re out of luck if you need to find someone you know who has no online presence, unless you find an old telephone book and they managed to keep the same number.

OzarkEdge

briggs

Service providers seem to be phasing out traditional directory services in favor of searching the Internet and/or subscribing to an online directory/data service (I have no experience with these). As ridiculous as searching the Internet sounds, it can be useful for finding/confirming a number with a certain degree of certainty.

Of course, if you do know the person’s address, you can send mail and ask for their number… as quaint as that might seem.

My OBi dial plan 411 dials 1-800-Free411 or 800-373-3411, but I have never used it and it may no longer be safe(?)